Council officers were posed this question

Council officers were posed this question: “You stated on your website that you have a duty ‘to suppress heresy, idolatry, and every other enemy of sound doctrine’. Does that mean that if you came to power you would feel it necessary to persecute non-Calvinists?”  Here is how one Council officer responded to the query:

“Let me first say that I am but one officer and member in the Party, and I am just responding as one officer and member.

 

I think we need to keep one thing in mind as a starting premise: no civil government is morally neutral and every civil government suppresses that which is contrary to its values.  For example, the modern USA is essentially a secular humanist nation, and it suppresses Biblical Christianity by teaching and promoting Darwinian evolution in the public schools (instead of the Biblical account of creation).  It provides funding for secular humanist schools but not Christian schools.  Public television for the most part comes from an un-Biblical perspective. Furthermore, one cannot hold civil office in the USA unless one swears to uphold the US Constitution, including the un-Biblical anti-establishment of religion position.  But even though secular humanism is promoted and Biblical Christianity is suppressed, does not mean the civil government is coming and executing me as a Christian.

 

So analogously, when it says heresy, idolatry, and every other enemy of sound doctrine should be suppressed, does not mean everyone who is not a Calvinist would be executed or thrown in prison.  Rather, it means the civil government will take appropriate and Biblical action to uphold truth and suppress falsehood, as is really the duty of every man and institution of man.

 

But when you say lots of Arminians were thrown in prison in the 17th century, I would ask you when and where.  I am a Presbyterian, and I can tell you that in Scotland those who were thrown in prison or executed were for the most part the staunch Calvinistic Presbyterians.  I think the record of Calvinistic rule compares very favorably with the alternatives.  And it most certainly looks good in comparison with modern Western nations where the abortion genocide is killing people by the tens of millions.  And the latter does not even consider how modern Western societies are suppressing the gospel, which has eternal consequences.”