October 27 – “International Religious Freedom Day.”
On this day Michael Servetus (1553), a Spanish physician/theologian who was accused “convicted” and condemned for heresy and blasphemy (promulgating anti-Trinitarian ideas) was burned at the stake at Geneva Switzerland. God is Triune but not believing that does give a man the right to put to one to death. That goes for John Calvin (and his crew) in Geneva.
Also on this date two Quakers (Society of Friends), William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, were hung (1659). It was not Geneva this time – it was our own Massachusetts. (They were two of the four Quakers hung on Boston Common, William Leddra and Mary Dyer are the other two.) The Puritans had a right to believe as they believed but so did the Quakers. No man has a right to take another’s life and that includes American religionists – ancient and modern.