Jae Jerkins on John Calvin

“Calvin states that Muhammad is “the companion of the Pope who has done his very best to seduce those poor people who were enraged and saturated and poisoned by his false doctrine”. Calvin condemns Muhammad and the Pope as the two horns of the Antichrist described in Daniel’s prophetic seventh chapter. For Calvin, both the Pope and Muhammad seduced potential Protestant Christians away from the true path through false teachings and idolatrous practices.”

“After witnessing Suleiman reach Vienna in 1529, both Luther and Calvin came to fear the influence of Islam and denigrated Muhammad as a consequence of that fear. Calvin in particular condemned Islam for its veneration of Muhammad as a prophet and claimed that Muslims set Mohammed apart from other men as an idol. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), Calvin condemns the treatment of Muhammad as that of an idol. “The Turks in the present day”, he states, proclaim “with full throat that the Creator of heaven and earth is their God”, yet they reject the sovereignty of Christ and “substitute an idol in His place”. The replacing of Jesus with Muhammad is a grievous action for Calvin. He proclaims in a sermon, “[the Turks] set their Mahomet in the place of God’s Son”, for which he questions, “ought such a one be put to death, without forbearing?””

“Calvin took the position that Islam was not merely a threat to European Christendom, but to potential Christians all over the world. Slomp finds Calvin believed that Muslims were former Christians “deceived by Muhammad”. In this way, Calvin placed the blame for Islam as a false religion that sentenced souls to damnation solely on one man, Muhammad. In Calvin’s Opera, Sermon 26 on Daniel 9, he explains that “Muhammad had corrupted the greater part of the world, setting an example for other sects which always want to say and invent something new. All sects that exist today ... have come out of this mud puddle. ”Thus, Muhammad is not merely responsible for Islam as a false religion, but all other sects that have developed since then that mislead the people who, in Calvin’s mind, rightfully belong to Christ. Calvin blames Muhammad for the damned state of all Muslims, citing Muhammad’s “deceitfulness” that has “bewitched” Muslims to idolize him instead of worshipping Christ.”