John Calvin with a dash of Oscar Romero?

A New Book on Calvin and Politics

Rubén Rosario Rodríguez
Calvin for the World
The Enduring Relevance of His Political, Social, and Economic Theology
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2024.

Okay friends, this book has now entered my Top # 5 most interesting books for the year, let me explain why!

Calvinism is not reducible to predestination, TULIPS, or even a theological system.

Calvinism is arguably a type of civilization. If you don’t believe me, then read Book 4 of Calvin’s Institutes, which is about how to run a Protestant city.

And yet, while Calvin has the reputation for being a heresy-murdering theocrat, the inspiration for Dutch Reformed apartheid, and behind other miscellany evils, Rubén Rodríguez shows how the perpetuation of that perception of Calvin is utterly wrong. Calvin was not the despotic theocrat that people like to paint him as.

Rodríguez quotes Marilynne Robinson who opines that “Calvin has a strange reputation that is based very solidly on the fact that nobody reads him.” Further, quoting historian Carter Lindberg, the complexities and contradictions in Calvin are laid bare since Calvin can be portrayed simultaneously as “both a narrow dogmatism and an ecumenical church person; a ruthless inquisitor and a sensitive, caring pastor; an ascetic, cold authoritarian and a compassionate humanist; … the tyrant of Geneva and a defender of freedom; a dictator and a revolutionary.”

Rodríguez’s opening chapter makes good points about the perils of trying to cancel historical figures like Calvin:

The problem with canceling problematic figures from the past is that we risk getting rid of all they got right. Instead of canceling Calvin outright, this book advocates risking personal offense by undertaking a serious encounter with his thought, for in seeing how past Christians like Calvin sought to answer the pressing questions and attend to the social problems of their day and age, we just mind find answers to the questions and problems we face today (xxii).

Rodríguez says that Calvin saw Church and State as two separate but cooperative realms. So he took Romans 13:1-17 very seriously about obeying governing authorities. Yet Rodríguez points out that Calvin dismissed the notion of regicide and tyrannicide because the King of France was worried that Protestants were a kind of “fifth column” who wanted to overthrow him and Calvin wanted to assure him that Protestants were not a civil threat to the French monarch. To be fair to the French King, if you listen to The Rest is History ep. 2 on the French revolution, it starts with a quote from someone about Lutherans and Calvinists joining-up to take-down the monarchy, so fair enough.

Yet Calvin wasn’t blindly obedient to rulers as he believed the church could exhort rulers towards justice and good rule and he believed in lawful opposition to tyrants and hoping that God would raise up an avenger to liberate those under coercision or despotism.

Very interesting too is how Rodríguez detects a liberation threat in Calvin and in the reception of Calvin. Calvin was instrumental in transforming Geneva from a feudal system to a republican one albeit with an inherent oligarchy. Even so, Calvin used his influence to build schools, sewerage facilities, and hospitals. Later, Puritan Calvinists became leaders in the American Revolution so much so that in England it was known as “the Presbyterian rebellion.” Calvinists were (initially) part of the French Revolution and Black Calvinists in South Africa opposed the Dutch Reformed system of apartheid. Rodríguez quotes Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract (1762) which gives props to Calvin: “Those who know Calvin only as a theologian much under-estimate the extent of his genius. The codification of our wise edicts, in which he played a large part, does hint no less honour than his Institute. Whatever revolution time may bring in our religion, so long as the spirit of patriotism and liberty still lives among us, the memory of this great man will be forever blessed.”

No surprises then that Calvin also made constant exhortations towards rulers about justice, economic welfare, and accepting refugees as Calvin himself was a refugee and did not attain citizenship in Geneva until much later. Ironically, Stephen Wolfe’s book on Christian Nationalism, despite being hardcore Calvinism, rejects Calvin’s positive concern for refugees.

When it comes to Calvin’s assent to the execution of Michael Servetus, Rodríguez points out two things: (1) Everyone - Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed, or Anglican - would have executed Servetus; and (2) What is astounding is that Servetus was the only heretic who Geneva executed when other Catholic and Protestant cities were executing religious deviants and deniers all the time. Yes, by our standards, we consider executing Servetus bad, but relative to the day, it was not bad. Calvin could be ecumenical and even had a modicum of tolerance for Jews and Muslims.

Rodríguez describes and explains some interesting other things like the reception of Calvin in South America, he compares Calvin’s approach to government with that of Oscar Romero, and he describes how Calvin was a resource in the struggle against Dutch Reformed apartheid in South Africa.

Part of this book reminded me of Permanent Revolution: The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism by James Simpson who noted how the Calvinist tradition, doctrinaire and authoritarian as it could be, still provided the roots of liberal democracy in many western nations.

Otherwise, if you are into Calvin, Reformed theology, or political theology I recommend you do two things.

First, read Book 4 of Calvin’s Institutes, and second, read this terrific book by Rodríguez.

Here’s the TOC

Introduction: Why Calvin? Why Now?
1. Calvin's Theology of Public Life
2. Calvin, Proto-liberationist?
3. The Undocumented Calvin
4. Calvin's Vision for an Ecumenical and Transnational Church
5. The Cosmopolitan Calvin and Religious Intolerance
6. A Scattered Inheritance--Calvin's Reception in Latin America
7. Calvin against Apartheid Calvinism