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Our Multiple Calvinisms: Historical Trajectories, Contemporary Predicaments, and Contestable Futures

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Our Multiple Calvinisms: Historical Trajectories, Contemporary Predicaments, and Contestable Futures Volume 39 Number 4 Article 2 June 2011 Our Multiple Calvinisms: Historical Trajectories, Contemporary Predicaments, and Contestable Futures Keith C. Sewell Dordt College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege Part of the Christianity Commons, and the History of Christianity Commons Recommended Citation Sewell, Keith C. (2011) "Our Multiple Calvinisms: Historical Trajectories, Contemporary Predicaments, and Contestable Futures," Pro Rege: Vol. 39: No. 4, 7 - 14. Available at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege/vol39/iss4/2 This Feature Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at Digital Collections @ Dordt. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pro Rege by an authorized administrator of Digital Collections @ Dordt. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Editor’s Note: Dr. Keith C. Sewell presented this paper at the Calvinism for the 21st Century Conference at Dordt College, April 2010. Our Multiple Calvinisms: Historical Trajectories, Contemporary Predicaments, and Contestable Futures (1837-1920) and his followers. My orientation is towards the latter. In certain respects, this discussion may be seen as the prelude to a future historiography of Calvinism that could be called reformational rather than hagiographical or nar- rowly theological in its agenda. At the same time this paper also draws upon my current work on the roots, character, and development of evangelicalism. Introduction All discussions of “Calvinism”—including “the new Calvinism” and/or “neo-Calvinism”— are prone to flounder because of the semantic range and multiple connotations of the term itself. A resolution of the resulting ambiguities can be by Keith C. Sewell achieved by historical analysis. Recent develop- ments underline the desirability of such a resolu- tion, for now there is a “new Calvinism” emerging within the many-sided phenomenon that is North- n this slightly amplified and edited version of the pa- American evangelicalism. The names of John I st per that I delivered at the Calvinism for the 21 Century Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Conference at Dordt College in April 2010, I focus on and Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church, Seattle, the continuities and discontinuities between the Reformed Washington, are prominent in this context. To these Christianity that emerged in the sixteenth century and was may be added Charles J. Mahaney of “Sovereign readily associated with the life and work of John Calvin Grace Ministries” and John Fullerton MacArthur, (1509-1564), and the kind of “neo-Calvinist” or “refor- Jr., of Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, mational” Christianity represented by Abraham Kuyper California. This latter trend—somewhat distin- guishable from the positions exemplified by earlier Keith C. Sewell is Professor of History at Dordt College. and other North-American “Reformed” evangeli- Pro Rege—June 2011 7 cals, such as R. C. Sproul of “Ligonier Ministries,” Calvinism” and the successors to Dooyeweerd and R. Albert Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Vollenhoven, relate to one another—if at all—and Seminary and the Southern Baptist Convention, to formulate a historical explanation for the mul- and the late James Kennedy (1930-2007)—is less tiple Calvinisms currently on offer. Yet, there is emphatically separatist in outlook, more inclined more. We must also reckon with that other term— to be ecumenically open, and capable of exhibiting “Reformed.” Often “Calvinistic” and “Reformed” more nuanced cultural and civic sensibilities. are used as if synonymous and, therefore, inter- Simultaneously, active in North America changeable—with preference sometimes given to at least since the major Dutch migration to “Reformed” in order to emphasize that there is Canada in the post-war era are those who were more to all of this than Calvin and his teaching.2 influenced by the gereformeerde movement, repre- Clarity begins to emerge after we jettison the sented by figures such as Abraham Kuyper and notion that the sixteenth century witnessed a single Herman Bavinck (1854-1921), exemplified by the generic “protestant reformation.” Premature gen- founding of the Free University at Amsterdam eralization is the enemy of historical understand- in 1880 and philosophically sharpened by Dirk ing, and it is only after we have confronted the Hendrik Theodoor Vollenhoven (1892-1978) and sheer diversity and complexity of this development Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977). The latter that we can safely offer carefully nuanced gener- are frequently characterized as “neo-Calvinists.” alizations. As I have argued elsewhere, the prot- Notwithstanding trials and tribulations—some estant reformations were, from the outset, divided self-inflicted—this movement has exerted a degree by four distinctive views of how the Scriptures were of influence through the Institute for Christian authoritative for the church and in life generally. Studies, Toronto; an array of colleges; and fig- After recognizing that no standpoint is ever ures such as H. Evan Runner (1916-2002), Calvin followed with complete consistency, these four Seerveld, Roy Clouser, and James Skillen. views may be characterized as follows: Moreover, the twentieth century also 1. the corrective, as adopted by the Evangelische witnessed a wonderful blossoming of historical re- (Lutherans), emanating from Wittenberg search into the life, teaching, and impact of John and also in the Church of England under Calvin himself. Karl Barth (1886-1968), and the Edward VI and from Elizabeth I onwards; manner of his early twentieth-century repudiation 2. the regulative, as annunciated by Huldrych of theological liberalism, certainly imparted con- Zwingli (1484-1531) and later Heinrich siderable initial impetus to this development. He Bullinger (1504-1575) in Zürich, exem- helped put Calvin back on the research agenda. plified by John Knox (1514-1572) and From the 1930s onwards, great engines of research Andrew Melville (1545-1622) in Scotland, have been deployed in what William Bouwsma and exemplified by the “Puritans,” who once called the “quest for the historical Calvin”— sought the further reformation of the as the profusion of 500th anniversary conferences English Church; in 2009 amply demonstrated.1 However Calvin is 3. the exemplary, as espoused by the understood and defined, the study of Calvin is no Anabaptists in various parts of German- longer in any sense the monopoly of Calvinists of speaking Europe and beyond, with their any or every stripe. desire to achieve authenticity by recover- ing and living according to (whatever their I view was of) the true New Testament pat- My present concern, however, is not so tern; much the study of Calvin himself—although he 4. the directional as exemplified by John Calvin is unquestionably part of the story—as it is the and his circle in Geneva. history of “Calvinism” in its diversity. More spe- For the purposes of our present discussion, we cifically, I would like to explore how these mul- may dispose of the first and third promptly. The tiple Calvinisms, including those of the “new Evangelische of the German Länder and Scandinavia, 8 Pro Rege—June 2011 as well as the English Church, followed the cor- the “regulative principle”: only that which is ex- rective way of Wittenberg: that which was not ex- pressly commanded in Scripture or legitimized pressly forbidden in scripture (vestments, ceremo- by clear scriptural example is lawful in the life of nies) might be retained. Those things supposedly the church and the Christian lives of its members. indifferent (adiaphora) were retained, subject to the Where Puritanism is honored, there the regulative lesser checks of “reason” and received tradition. principle is likely to be appreciated, if not always In sharp contrast, the Anabaptists sought to re- followed consistently. constitute Christianity de-novo, repudiating paedo- At first sight, the reformers of Zürich seemed baptism because nowhere did the New Testament to be at one with the a-historical restorationism of say, “thou shalt baptize babies.” Often persecuted, the Anabaptists—it certainly looked that way from the standpoint of Wittenberg. However, the Zürich re-baptizers were soon disappointed with Zwingli As I have argued and his municipally-backed “magisterial reforma- tion,” even as their critique helped drive the Zürich elsewhere, the protestant Reformers themselves to their covenantal view of reformations were, from biblical teaching, not least in respect of the ordi- nance of baptism. In short, Zürich’s “regulative” the outset, divided by standpoint was the touchstone of its “Reformed” distinctiveness. Its view of baptism distinguished four distinctive views of it sharply from the Anabaptists; its view of the how the Scriptures were Eucharist separated it sharply from the view of Luther and his followers. The “regulative” ap- authoritative for the church proach to church polity and public worship pro- and in life generally. duced that unaffected simplicity that many of us cherish half a millennium later. So where do we place John Calvin (1509- sometimes subject to millennial-apocalyptic de- 1564) and the circle around him—people such lusions, they sought to live straight out of their as Guillaume Farel (1489-1565) and Pierre Viret reading of the New Testament, as if they could (1511-1571)? They certainly shared much with the counter-historically excise the intervening centu- Reformed of Zürich. Yet their stance on how the ries. Sometimes deeply pious, they shunned public Bible is authoritative was not the same as that of office as inevitably entailing complicity with “the the German speakers. I suggest that theirs was a di- world.” rectional approach, based more on a distillation and Of course, none of this precludes cross-bor- application of scriptural principle in a new situation, rowings and other influences. For example, the not on a rigid codification of assorted biblical texts Church of England took a basically corrective view unchangingly applicable for all time—that kind of of church polity but did not adopt Luther’s view of development was to come later. Committed to dis- the Eucharist (consubstantiation).
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