Reformers As Christian Buthchers

Let’s return for a moment to The Brothers Karamazov, which hurls a tremendous accusation against the Catholic Church. On innumerable occasions it has sinned against the freedom of the children of God, “but to be honest the accusation does not stand only against the Catholic Church. Or were not heretics and witches burnt at the stake in Calvin’s and Luther’s Churches too, and were not opponents fought with violence instead of compelled by love. Does not everything of which the Catholic Church is accused in the way of lack of freedom, arbitrariness, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism, exist in other shapes and forms, more or less disguised, among the Christians of other confessions, and indeed often more in small sects than in large churches?”
(Brennan Manning. The Ragamuffin Gospel)