Tikkun Magazine, January/February 2010
Married to Calvin: For Better or For Worse
by Tony Campolo
It has been five hundred years since the birth of the Protestant reformer John Calvin. This controversial theologian changed the faith of countless numbers of Christians. His teachings also influenced the values and ethos of the Western world. Developments in the fields of economics, politics, the physical sciences, and environmentalism over the past five centuries all provide witness that Calvin's theology has profoundly conditioned our contemporary worldview.
Calvinism and Economic Behavior
The religious movement that Calvin initiated is best known for its influence over our economic thinking and behavior. Sociologists and economists such as Max Weber, R.H. Tawney, and Talcott Parsons have made us aware of what they call the "functional fit" between Calvinistic beliefs and capitalism. Neither Weber in his essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, nor Tawney in his book Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, clearly established a nexus between Calvinism and capitalism, but the followers of these respective schools of thought, as well as most social scientists, seldom question the idea that there is a symbiotic relationship between Calvinism and capitalism.
Weber, on the one hand, tried to demonstrate that Calvinism may have helped to create what he called an "elective affinity" for capitalistic development, while Tawney, a neo-Marxist, argued the reverse. Tawney believed that the emerging capitalistic societies of Europe adopted Calvinist theology because it provided ideological justification for economic practices that hitherto had been considered morally questionable, such as charging interest for money lent to the poor.
Weber recognized that Calvinism provided a necessary alternative to the prevailing Catholic belief that poverty was what marked the character of truly righteous Christians: Calvinism provided positive value judgments on the accumulation of wealth. Following Jesus's words, the Catholics taught that it would be "harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle" (Mark 10:25). Obviously, such beliefs about wealth had to be negated if capitalism, which is dependent on the accumulation of wealth for capital investments, was to thrive. Calvinism did just that. Whereas the saints in the Catholic Church were noted for their vows of poverty, Calvinists came to consider economic prosperity as evidence of being chosen by God for special blessings.
A major theological emphasis with Calvinists was, and is, their doctrine of divine election. They believe that those whom God has predestined for salvation will materially prosper. According to their understanding of "the foreknowledge of God" (Romans 8:29), the eternal destiny of each and every one of us is determined before we are even born. Some of us, according to the Calvinists, are predestined to be saved. By implication, they also believe that those who are not among "the elect" are predestined, even before their birth, for damnation. While Calvin himself may have made room for more free will than his followers did, there was, nevertheless, the prevailing belief among early Calvinists that humanity was divided into two groups of people-those chosen for salvation and those who, by default, were chosen for damnation.
This dichotomy separating "the saved" and "the lost" posed a very serious problem for Calvinists because they needed a means for determining who among them were saved and who were lost. They needed to come up with some means of establishing who the elect might be. For them, the answer to that question emerged in a belief that those people whom God had chosen for salvation would economically prosper. They argued that the Bible teaches that those chosen to be "the bride of Christ" (as Calvinists defined those who made up the membership of the church) would be showered by God with material blessings.
Calvinists found support for their beliefs about prosperity for the elect in the Hebrew Bible. They argued that whenever the people of Israel were in right relationships with God, they prospered. But when Israel followed after gods other than YHWH, lived lives of spoiled affluence, and neglected the needs of the poor and the oppressed, God brought upon them famine, pestilence, and conquests by their enemies. If you discern in this kind of thinking the rudiments of what has become the "prosperity theology" so often marketed by some television evangelists, you are absolutely right. Also, it's easy to see why this kind of thinking could provide an ideology for capitalism.
Perhaps even more important than the religious significance that Calvinists gave to the accumulation of wealth was the redefinition and meaning that they gave to work. Whereas Catholicism had established a clear delineation between secular and religious vocations, Calvinism did not. In Catholicism, if Christians wanted to be wholly committed to doing the will of God, they were required to leave their "worldly vocations" and seek service to their Lord in "religious vocations" by becoming nuns, monks, or priests. Calvinism, however, changed all of that by teaching that every vocation should be viewed as a calling from God. The differentiation between sacred vocations and secular vocations so well established in Catholic teachings was obliterated by Calvinistic theology.
It has been said that Calvin did away with monasteries only to make the entire world into a monastery. Under the impact of Calvinistic teachings, every man and woman, regardless of vocational calling, was taught to understand that his or her work was an assignment from God. In accord with Colossians 3:23, they declared whatever work a Christian undertakes should be done "heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men."
It doesn't take much imagination to recognize that if people in their workplaces believe that their respective vocational activities are ministries rendered as the service of God-and that God is always watching them, even when their employers are not (according to their interpretation of Ephesians 6:6)-that they will be intensely diligent in their labors. This, contended sociologists such as Max Weber, caused people to adopt "the Protestant work ethic."
Calvinism and the Development of Modern Science
While it is common to assume, in light of the trial of Galileo, that religion generally has retarded scientific progress, there are sociologists who contend that Calvinists have actually provided a strong impetus for scientific research and development. Robert Merton, one of the former deans of American sociology, in his definitive work, Social Theory and Social Structure, carefully assembled evidence from the records of the British Royal Academy of Science that the work ethic generated by Protestantism in general, and from Puritan Calvinism in particular, had much to do with advancements in the physical sciences within the United Kingdom. In a carefully worked-out evaluation of the inventions and discoveries made by the members of the Royal Academy, it became evident to Merton that scientists of note who were Protestants, and especially those who were Calvinists, disproportionately outnumbered those who were Catholics.
Merton surmised that those whose scientific worldview had been molded under Calvinistic Puritanism viewed their work as researchers as a way of serving their God. Such scientists, he argued, viewed their work as commitments to religious vocations. Consequently, these scientists engaged in their research with high levels of dedication, and their commitment to the tasks of scientific inquiry as an expression of the Protestant work ethic advanced the development of modern science.
Still another contribution to their zeal for scientific research, Merton pointed out, was the Calvinistic belief that all knowledge pointed to one truth-the truth of God. For Calvinists, it was not just theological knowledge that pointed to God. They believed that all knowledge provided insights into the nature and character of the Creator. Astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics were all considered, by the Calvinists, to be capable of yielding divine revelations. Imbued with Calvinistic zeal, they believed that in the discoveries they made, they were adding to humanity's understanding of God every bit as much as did biblical scholars. Geniuses such as Isaac Newton had no doubt in their minds that they were engaged in a holy quest as they explored the laws of nature and formulated mathematical postulates that demonstrated the harmonies of God's creation.
Calvinism and Political Theory
Calvinism was also a source for the form of government that marks our society. Most novices in the field of political science have a tendency to assume that American political structures were copied from the British. Since so much of the American way of life has been derived from our brothers and sisters in the United Kingdom, it is easy to understand that our constitutional system of government was copied from the British. Indeed, there is little doubt that the writings of Thomas Jefferson were highly influenced by the insights and ideas of the likes of John Locke and other philosophers from the United Kingdom. The reality is, however, that if we stop and compare forms of government, we will be led to conclude that we are much more indebted to the governing ideas nurtured by Calvinism than we are to those of the British Isles.
Pulitzer Prize winner Marlynne Robinson, in her book The Death of Adam, makes the case that tendencies toward popular government, as evidenced in New England, can be traced back to 1528, when representative government was established in Geneva, Switzerland. Robinson points out that, as a result of the uprising in Geneva that overthrew the control exercised by the House of Savoy, Calvinists established, in place of the autocratic rule, the model of popularly elected city council members. This new form of government, she claims, was carried along with Calvinists' religion to the Netherlands, and from there the Puritans brought it to America. Robinson deduces that it was the thinking and ways of the Calvinists that really provided the impetus for New England's politics, with its town meetings and representative government. It was from emancipated Geneva that the Dutch, and later those in New England, learned the polity of free elections.
Robinson cites the eighteenth-century American Puritan, John Wise, who wrote in his diary that New England's Congregationalism was a product of Calvinism and, in consequence, established democratic thinking. It was the democracy that was manifested in the Congregational forms of church life established by Calvinistic Puritans that nurtured what has come to be our republic. Robinson claims that Puritans such as John Wise promoted democracy, which they viewed as an outgrowth of Calvinistic Congregationalism as a practical and stable form of government suited to "the natural prerogatives of human beings."
The southern states, which were settled by Christians of the Anglican Church rather than by Calvinistic Puritans, tended to be more inclined toward the policies of British government. It is no surprise to Robinson that the South, unlike New England, established a sharply stratified society that shared the British beliefs that lent legitimacy to the practice of slavery.
Just and Unjust Criticisms of Calvinism
As environmentalism has come more and more to the fore, there are those such as Lynn White who have blamed Protestant Christianity, and more specifically Calvinism, for an orientation toward nature that has led to the ecological disasters we now face. In a now famous article published in 1967 in Science magazine, White claimed that Calvinism developed what he called a "utilitarian view of nature." Put simply, White declared that it was the Calvinists who taught that the only value that nature has is in the use that we humans might find for it. White believed that Calvinism propagated the idea that God has given human beings dominion over nature and that it is our right to exploit nature to satisfy our needs. He pointed out that Calvin wrote in his commentary on the Book of Genesis these words:
We infer what was the end for which all things were created; namely that none of the conveniences and necessities of life might be wanting to man. In the very order of creation, the paternal solicitude of God for man is conspicuous because He furnished the world with all things needful and even with an immense profusion of wealth before He formed man.
It is from such statements that White draws his negative conclusions about Calvinism.
Personally, I choose to argue just the opposite. If we go to Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, his classical magnum opus, we will find that John Calvin makes a strong case for environmental responsibility. Consider these words from the Institutes:
Let him who possesses a field, so partake of its yearly fruits, that he may not suffer the ground to be injured by his negligence; but let him endeavor to hand it down to posterity as he received it, or even better cultivated. Let him so feed on its fruits that he neither dissipates it by luxury nor permits it to be marred or ruined by neglect ... Let everyone regard himself as a steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then he will never conduct himself dissolutely, nor corrupt by abuse those things which God requires to be preserved.
Granted, Calvin, as a son of the Renaissance, developed a rational orientation toward nature, lacking that mystical disposition toward God's creation that was so evident in the attitudes and words of St. Francis of Assisi. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that a fair reading of Calvin would cause those who follow the thinking of this great reformer to take care of the natural world as a religious vocation.
Calvinism and the Holocaust
Another serious critic of Calvinistic thought is found in Erich Fromm. In his book Escape from Freedom, Fromm suggests that Calvinistic thinking contributed to a mindset that allowed for the Holocaust that took the lives of more than six million Jews. Calvinism, along with doctrines promoted by Martin Luther, made much of the claim that, apart from the spiritual regeneration resulting from the saving work of Christ, persons are "totally depraved."
The belief that there can be nothing righteous in anyone apart from Christ was one of the consequences of what most Calvinists believe about "original sin." Calvinists declare that since the time of Adam and Eve and the disobedience to God's will, all humanity has been rendered devoid of God's goodness. "The Fall," as they call it, resulted in the obliteration of anything that was good in human beings, and apart from what Christ can impart to those who surrender to Him, all humanity is damned to eternal punishment. There are some who will argue that this is an extreme distortion of Calvin's teachings. They may be right, because in reality Calvin did say that there is such a thing as "venial grace," which imparts worth to even those who may be deemed "spiritually unregenerate." Nevertheless, Fromm does not concern himself with what Calvin actually said as much as he concerns himself with what the Calvinists have thought he said. That, he contends, is what led many Christians in Germany to view Jews as totally depraved persons, and to view throwing six million of them into ovens at Auschwitz and Dachau as much less than the horrendous evil that it was.
Those of us who are spiritual progressives and, at the same time, Evangelical see infinite worth in every person, regardless of who they are or where they are coming from religiously. Our belief in the sacredness of every human being is at the core of our convictions and is the basis for our concerns for justice on behalf of the poor and oppressed. The preciousness of life is the basis upon which Tikkun magazine is grounded. Michael Lerner has made it clear that his spiritual commitments have led him to believe that the infinite worth of persons has been established by God. There is much to be discussed about Calvin and Calvinism, but we cannot give ground to any who would denigrate the dignity of persons.
It must be left up to the reader to evaluate the positive and negative dimensions of Calvinism on our contemporary society. This, however, is not up for question: Calvinism has played a major role in the thinking of the Western world and continues to have an impact on how many of us behave, even in these present times. As we remember John Calvin on this five-hundredth anniversary of his birth, the vast scope of his influence cannot be overlooked if we are to understand those Americans who have absorbed, perhaps somewhat unconsciously, the ethos he helped create. He is with us, and will be with us for a long time.
Rev. Tony Campolo, Ph.D., professor emeritus at Eastern University, founded the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education. His most recent books are The God of Intimacy and Action and Red Letter Christians. He is a regular columnist for Tikkun.
Source Citation
Campolo, Tony. 2010. Married to Calvin: For Better or For Worse. Tikkun 25(1): 52.
