This 92nd episode of CS is titled “The School of Christ” and is part 2 in our look at the Reformer, John Calvin.We left off with Calvin back in Geneva after being banished for a few years following a run in with the City Council. They realized how much they needed him to design the reforms they felt they had to make so they asked him to return and accommodated themselves to being the agents by which his plans could be implemented.While Calvin designed the policies enacted by the city government, he kept himself to his role as a minister in the church. Besides preaching and teaching almost daily, he served as a professor of Old Testament studies three times a week. He was a busy pastor, offering guidance in church matters and assisting the deacons in the administration of their task by offering sage counsel.While later nay-sayers cast Calvin as a kind of dictator in Geneva, that’s certainly NOT what he was.  He was appointed and paid by the city council as an advisor. He could have been dismissed by them at any time, as he in fact was in 1538 for a year and a half. Don’t forget that he was a Frenchman, living in Switzerland. He didn’t even become a citizen till his last years.Calvin’s authority was more due to his moral and spiritual gravitas than anything else. His influence was the result of other’s acceptance of an authority gained from God’s call. It stemmed from his conviction he was simply the agent of God’s Word and will.  While there’ve been many throughout history who got drunk on the power-potion and became abusive, Calvin was humbled that such influence had been given him and labored to wield it in a manner that brought glory to God alone and would work genuine and long-lasting good among others.As listeners to CS know, I attempt to present as unbiased a presentation of church history as I can. But I will occasionally insert my personal perspective. When I do, I mark it off with a verbal parenthesis. One follows now …I’m not an adherent of Calvinism and Reformed Theology. While an Evangelical Protestant, I’m more of the Traditionalist camp in regards to my theological position. So while I disagree with several points of Calvin’s theology, especially in regard to the doctrines of Election and Determinism, I recognize Calvin himself was apparently a man of unimpeachable character. God alone sees the heart, but from what history tells us, John Calvin was someone who consistently practiced what he preached. A good and humble man committed to God’s glory and love of his fellow man.Later critics who fault him for some of what happened in Geneva during his time there make the all-too-common mistake of applying modern sensibilities to the past. They lack historical perspective. It is no more right to condemn Calvin for the failures in Geneva than it is to blame doctors during the Black Death for not knowing about germs and viruses. Like it or not, we are all the product of our time. It’s the height of arrogance for today’s 20 year old, sitting in the comfort of a college classroom, to condemn those of the 16th Century because they failed to live by standards and a moral code that didn’t even emerge till many years later.The evidence tells us Calvin was a moral and spiritual standout whose sole flaw was that he could have been less intense, less severe. è So! It’s at this point we must speak to a tragic moment in Geneva’s history and Calvin’s part in it.Michael Servetus arrived in Geneva in 1553 after having fled from Catholic authorities seeking to arrest him as a heretic. Servetus denied the Trinity, a position considered blasphemous throughout Europe in the 16th C. Servetus probably thought the Reformation center of Geneva would be more tolerant of his ideas. After all, the Catholics hated the Genevans too. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?Well, not in this case.Geneva was no more inclined to allow heresy than Rome. The brilliant but erratic Spanish physician was arrest