Calvin’s Political Theology, authored by Matthew J. Tuininga, currently Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and the History of Christianity at Calvin Theological Seminary. Tuininga makes his objective clear from the beginning: “[Calvin’s political theological perspective] offers us the theological resources to reject the ideal of Christendom, in which all citizens are expected to worship and live as Christians, on the one hand, and to affirm the value of political liberalism and principled Christian participation in pluralistic democratic societies, on the other.1” The reaffirmation of liberalism is necessary in our time, he continues, because “prominent Christian pastors and theologians, not to mention liberal philosophers, are questioning the compatibility of orthodox Christianity with political liberalism.2 Against this skeptical attitude, Tuininga believes that “Christians cannot afford to reject liberal politics if we are to take seriously the command to love and serve our neighbors.”3

What does it look like when a defender of pluralistic liberalism critiques Christian nationalism (i.e., Christendom) without resorting to charges of racism, kinism, and so forth? Sober criticism of this sort has been scarce in the year since Stephen Wolfe’s book on Christian nationalism was published. As it so happens, though, an attempt at serious engagement was made several years prior to the book’s release. This effort took the form of a book titled Calvin’s Political Theology, authored by Matthew J. Tuininga, currently Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and the History of Christianity at Calvin Theological Seminary. Tuininga makes his objective clear from the beginning:

[Calvin’s political theological perspective] offers us the theological resources to reject the ideal of Christendom, in which all citizens are expected to worship and live as Christians, on the one hand, and to affirm the value of political liberalism and principled Christian participation in pluralistic democratic societies, on the other.¹

The reaffirmation of liberalism is necessary in our time, he continues, because “prominent Christian pastors and theologians, not to mention liberal philosophers, are questioning the compatibility of orthodox Christianity with political liberalism.² Against this skeptical attitude, Tuininga believes that “Christians cannot afford to reject liberal politics if we are to take seriously the command to love and serve our neighbors.”³ His discussion of Calvin’s political theology is therefore meant to bolster contemporary liberalism, even as he recognizes that “Calvin was no liberal.”⁴

That said, it would be difficult for me to name another book that undercuts its own stated purpose so spectacularly as this one. To begin with, Tuininga acknowledges that most or all of the major Reformers other than Calvin believed, contrary to modern liberalism, that “government is obligated to make the truth, the honor of God, and the care of religion its chief concern.”⁵ Martin Luther, whatever comments he made in his earlier career, ultimately “[defended] the obligation of secular authorities to suppress…heresy, blasphemy, and sedition.”⁶ Likewise, Philip Melanchthon came to hold that “magistrates were obligated to enforce both tables of the Ten Commandments for the purpose of maintaining the glory of God.”⁷ Ulrich Zwingli “endorsed the need for the magistrate to suppress those who disturbed the church by preaching or practicing false doctrine.”⁸ Martin Bucer “argued that the magistrate is to preserve public order by establishing peace and godliness,” with the corollary that “false teaching should be punished with the sword.”⁹ Finally, Heinrich Bullinger maintained that “civil government could require outward obedience to the covenant, using capital punishment to free the commonwealth of false teachers, blasphemers, adulterers, or other offenders.”¹⁰

The fact that many prominent Reformers favored magisterial care of religion, as Tuininga demonstrates, would be enough on its own to seriously undermine any contemporary effort to baptize modern liberalism, but he further grants that Calvin, rather than departing from the other Reformers on this question, was in full accord with them. Calvin “explicitly presupposed the existence and legitimacy of Christendom.”¹¹ He “maintained that civil government has a responsibility to protect the true religion against public offenses, enforcing outward obedience to the moral law summarized in both tables of the Ten Commandments.”¹² In particular, Calvin thought it appropriate for the government to punish “whoredom and adultery, drunkenness, and blaspheming of the name of God,”¹³ among other things. Most famously, he “supported the death penalty for individuals guilty of notorious heresy,”¹⁴ as exemplified by his role in the execution of Michael Servetus. All of this is supported by Tuininga with copious citations from Calvin’s entire corpus, including letters, sermons, and biblical commentaries as well as various editions of his Institutes.

In light of this evidence, it is natural to wonder how a Christian proponent of modern liberalism such as Tuininga might argue that we should disregard the example of Calvin and the other Reformers, to say nothing of the wider Christian tradition. Tuininga’s justification for dismissing Calvin on this point is that his support for magisterial care of religion is primarily rooted in natural law. As he puts it, “Calvin’s arguments rely more on his interpretation of reason, experience, the laws of nations, and classic philosophy than they do on his exegesis of scripture (or even his use of the Old Testament).”¹⁵ Tuininga defends this move on the grounds that “Calvin himself distinguished between the authority of arguments drawn from natural reason (which could be challenged and rejected) and the authority of scripture (which, if interpreted correctly, could not be rejected).”¹⁶ Here Tuininga sounds a great deal like some critics of Wolfe’s book, a number of whom have objected that it relies too much on natural reason rather than Scripture. To give a couple of examples, Andrew T. Walker writes that “Wolfe may assert that ‘the government has the duty to promote true religion,’ but he never argues that point from the Bible from any clear command.”

Read More