Calvinism: Not Just a Pretty Tulip

We Must Return to the Strength of Calvin’s Teachings

“Calvin had inspired in his disciples that energy of piety which abhors all halfway measures, which boldly endeavors to make all affairs of life subject to Christ, the Head and Lord.” 

– Augustus Lang

Calvinism used to be a cultural force. In fact, Calvinists have a long and illustrious history of cultural, political, and economic transformation. My bookshelf has numerous works that connect Calvin with cultural change and civilization building. Titles of either books or chapters within books include “Calvinism and Economics,” “Calvin and the Public Square,” “Calvin and Commerce,” “Calvinism and American War for Independence,” “Calvinism and the Rise of Capitalism,” “The Role of Calvinism in the Rise of Modern Science,” “Calvinism and the Arts,” “Calvin’s Impact on Church and Society,” “John Calvin’s Application of Natural Law,” “Calvinism and Government,” “John Calvin’s Perspectival Anthropology,” and so on.  One could quickly – and accurately – get the impression that Calvin and Calvinists have impacted almost every area of life, that Calvinism has infiltrated and permeated our civilization as a whole. A couple works that stand out are Abraham Kuyper’s famous 1898 Princeton Stone Foundation Lectures, unpacking Calvinism as a comprehensive worldview (including politics, science, and art), and Douglas Kelly’s superb historical work, “The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World,” which looks at Calvin’s influence on civil government over a 300-year period, including Geneva, Huguenot France, Knox’s Scotland, Puritan England, and early America. 

The impact of Calvin and Calvinism on history is well known to real scholars. Calvinists were key players in the rise of the early modern missionary movement, as chronicled in Iain Murray’s book “The Puritan Hope.” Calvinism brought with it a strong system of personal and social ethics everywhere it went, including a very positive view of marriage, sex within marriage, and sexually differentiated roles for men and women. Calvinism strengthened the patriarchal and productive household. Calvinists were pro-business and pro-entrepreneurship, driven by what came to be known as the Puritan (or Protestant) work ethic. Calvinists were not ashamed of wealth, or power, or of exercising influence. Calvin and his successors developed a doctrine of vocation that emphasized the goodness of human labor. Calvinists sparked revivals, reformations, and even (properly understood) revolutions. In short, historic Calvinism was a high energy faith. Calvinism was not just a system of doctrine, it was enacted and embodied in cultures, economies, movements, and nations.

Take the founding of America as an illustration. One of the greatest American historians from the 19^th century, George Bancroft, described the impact of Calvin on America this way:

He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty…[Calvin is] the father of America…The Revolution of 1776, so far as it was affected by religion, was a Presbyterian measure. It was the natural outgrowth of the principles which the Presbyterianism of the Old World planted in her sons, the English Puritans, the Scotch Covenanters, the French Huguenots, the Dutch Calvinists, and the Presbyterians of Ulster.

Leopold von Ranke was just as blunt: “John Calvin was the virtual founder of America.” Concepts that were crucial to the formation of our nation, such as the right to resist tyranny through the lesser the magistrate and the value of republican/representative government, were largely derived from Calvin’s work. Calvin might not have invented these doctrines – they have a pedigree older than the Reformation – but Calvin was responsible for formalizing and developing them in crucial ways, exegetically, theologically, and practically. Calvin’s reflections on the proper relationship of church and state were highly influential in the early American period. Some British elites referred to America’s war for independence as the “Presbyterian Rebellion” because Presbyterian (Calvinistic) leadership, politically and ecclesiastically, was so pervasive in the colonies. 

But somewhere along the way, Calvinism got diluted and lost its cultural punch. If Calvinists used to be the junkyard dogs of Christendom, ready to topple tyrants and carve civilizations out of the wilderness, today’s Calvinists are usually squishy and spineless. If Calvinism used to be like leaven working its way into the whole batch of cultural flour, today’s Calvinists are mostly culturally and politically irrelevant. Yes, there are definite exceptions, but Calvinists no longer have the reputation they once had. For proof, look no further than the way many self-professed Calvinist pastors folded up like a cheap tent during the “shamdemic” lock-downs. Many contemporary Calvinists have been tossed to and fro by various cultural waves and winds, being shaped more by the culture than shaping it. It’s fair to ask what has happened to the Calvinism that built our nation. When and how did Calvinism become a mere shell and shadow of its former self?

The issue is really quite simple. The problem with American Calvinism of the last 100+ years is that it has become a soteriology-only Calvinism. Modern Calvinism is reductionistic. Many modern Calvinists have boiled down the richness of Reformed theology to a very thin five points. The TULIP, rightly understood, is wonderful, but when this part of Calvinism passes for the whole of Calvinism, we are greatly impoverished. The TULIP – total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints – is a helpful shorthand summary for some of what Calvin taught (albeit with a great deal of nuance) on key soteriological topics. But it is far from the whole of Calvinism, and Calvin himself would not recognize TULIP as a summary of his own system of beliefs.

Today, if someone asks, “Are you a Calvinist?” they are usually asking if you hold to the TULIP. But any Calvinism worthy of the name is far thicker theologically and far more holistic. To be true Calvinists, we need other aspects of Calvin’s program – the high ecclesiology, the sacramental theology, the covenantalism (especially as it undergirds family life), the teaching on masculine headship (aka patriarchy), the political theology, the doctrine of interposition and civil disobedience, and so much more. I have gotten into the habit of not asking someone, “Are you a five point Calvinist?,” but “Are you a four book Calvinist?” Of course, I’m referring to Calvin’s masterwork, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, which consists of four books. Book four of the Institutes is sadly unfamiliar to many contemporary American Calvinists, and if they were made familiar with it, they would probably dismiss it as too “Catholic.” In Book four, Calvin develops his high ecclesiology, focusing on the church as the mother of all believers; his strong sacramental theology, focused on the efficacy of baptism and the mystical presence of Christ in his Supper; and his doctrine of the civil magistrate, in which he calls civil authority “not only sacred and lawful, but the most sacred, and by far the most honorable, of all stations in mortal life,” while also developing a doctrine of covenantal resistance against magistrates who overstep their lawful bounds. In short, book four is where the action is, and it covers the bulk of the ground that we have lost to the forces of secularization and privatization. The TULIP without book four is simply not enough.

This does not mean no part of the Calvinistic tradition can be further reformed – there are some aspects of Calvin’s work I’d want to modify in various ways. But reducing the riches of Calvin’s Reformational worldview to a soteriology for elect individuals is a horrific loss. It has turned modern Calvinists into pale, insipid, effeminate pietists instead of the courageous, world conquering, culture-changing, tyrant-defying force we should be. A true Calvinist is a high churchman with a robust political theology and well-developed anthropology. Today’s Calvinists are generally clueless about cultural and political questions, think of the church as little more than a religious club, and lack the spine that animated our fathers in the faith. Rousseau and Nietzsche viewed the Christians of their times as mediocre and passive losers. For a long time, Calvinists were a bright exception to this assessment, but today it rings true even in our circles. Calvinists were once known as Christians with a backbone; today, most Calvinists are softer than a beanbag. Think of it think way: Queen Mary feared John Knox because she knew he was not afraid to push back against her errant theology and her tyranny.  Knox gave her many a sleepless night. Today, we have thousands of Calvinists in large denominations and not a single tyrant is worried about us, knows any of our names, or cares what we think. Times have changed.

Reducing Calvinism to merely a soteriology has left Calvinists vulnerable to other influences. Obviously, the sovereignty of God in salvation is a crucial truth, and understanding this doctrine is essential to properly glorifying God for his work of salvation, preaching the gospel in its fullness, and helping believers attain assurance. But a Calvinism reduced to soteriology is vulnerable to having the gaps in its worldview filled in with content that can actually subvert the faith at its heart.

Reducing Calvinism to nothing more than soteriology gave rise to what has been called the “gospel-centered movement.” But as Douglas Wilson has pointed out, the gospel-centered movement collapsed, not because its center gave way but because it failed to define the circumference. The gospel is the center of what, exactly? The gospel-centered movement failed because it ultimately produced a sub-human (or dehumanizing) form of piety that called features of natural human life, like ambition and patriotism, into question, even rebranding them as idolatry. Aaron Renn has called this “Buddhist Christianity” and Michael Clary has unpacked it in terms of the “Jesus Juke”, but it amounts to the same thing: a version of Christian faith that claims a piece of the individual’s interior life, but nothing else. In other words, whereas the Calvinism of the past was a totalizing faith that claimed every square inch of life, public and private, for Christ, today’s anemic, diluted Calvinism doesn’t claim much of anything at all. It leaves most of the playing field to be run by other forces and other faiths.

This shrunken Calvinism has left a void in people’s lives and worldviews. Nature abhors a vacuum and worldviews do too, so this modernized, truncated Calvinism has been compromised. Embracing an apolitical Calvinism does not make us apolitical creatures. We will still act in the political arena but will do so unmoored from Scripture, general revelation, and the Christian tradition. This is why so many Christians, including those in Calvinist circles, fell for wokeness over the last five to ten years: wokeness filled the void left by a soteriology-only Calvinism. This truncated soteriology-only Calvinism has now been married to progressive politics, instead of fostering its own politics, thus creating an uneasy hybrid that cannot possibly last; at some point these Calvinists will either have to return to the more robust faith of their fathers or will go full progressive.

Calvinism, in its true form, is more than just a system of salvation for elect individuals. It is a soteriology, to be sure, but much, much more. Calvinism was instrumental in the rise of modern science and representative government. Calvinism, more than any other source, generated the best features of Western civilization, many of which are still with us today. Calvinism produced the Protestant work ethic and its attendant wealth. Calvinism powered the early modern global missions movement. Calvinism made America. That brand of Calvinism has been watered down, but it’s time to return to a full strength Calvinism. It’s time to make Calvinism great again.

---

Image Credit: Unsplash

Share This