Introduction
Just a few short days ago, Dinesh D’Souza decided to start talking trash about Calvinism online, and—let us be frank—that created something of a set-to. The imbroglio consisted of two parts. One part had to do with the standard doctrinal questions which naturally arise whenever these questions come up. “Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?” (Rom. 9:19). How can God be sovereign and at the same time man be free and responsible? I will just note in passing that this standard objection to Calvinism shows up in the New Testament as a standard objection to Pauline theology. Somebody should explain that. Just saying.
The other aspect of it was that Dinesh displayed an astonishing level of ignorance about the topic he had decided to take on. Assuming that Calvinism is a dragon that must be slain, Dinesh was like a ten-year-old boy who took on that mission with a trash can lid and a sawed-off broom handle. While his courage was admirable, the crusader cross painted on the lid didn’t help. And a pillow was tied to his head for a helmet. Courage notwithstanding, the total effect was embarrassing.
How This Matters
Dinesh is a conservative commentator. He has done a number of good things for the cause, alongside some embarrassing ones. But I am happy to assume his intentions are good, and that like many other conservatives he wants to save America. But you can’t help to save America unless you understand America, and you can’t understand America without understanding Calvinism. Along with a couple other things, to be mentioned in a minute.
And if anything was made plain in this online fracas, it was that Dinesh (and Jenna Ellis, who joined up with him) did not understand Calvinism. The point I am making initially here is not that Calvinism is true (although it is). The point is that Calvinism is as American as apple pie, only more so, clearly antedating the time when apple pie became one of our staples. If Calvinism is theologically incoherent then America was founded in the midst of a frenzy of cultural incoherence. The thirteen colonies were overwhelmingly Protestant, divided up between the Congregationalists, the Presbyterians, the Baptists, and the Episcopalians—all of them Calvinist. Modern Episcopalians don’t like to admit it, but some of us took screen shots of The 39 Articles. The Wesleyan Methodists (evangelical Arminians) didn’t make their big move in America until after the Revolution, during our westward expansion. The Quakers and Catholics were not Calvinists, but were also not major political players.
In the Founding era, our confessions were Calvinist. The sermons were Calvinist. The great revival leaders like Whitefield and Edwards were Calvinists. Their political theology was Calvinist. The entire cast of mind was Calvinist. Dinesh should just say thank you, and then register his dissent.
America: the Remodel
Picture America as a once elegant house, now run down, and you are deciding whether or not to buy it as a fixer-upper. What should you look at? You obviously see all the things that need work, from the shag carpet in the bathroom to the tires and weeds in the front yard. A few walls that were put in sometime in the seventies need to be taken out—here’s looking at you, 17th Amendment—and you realize that you are probably going to be Benjamin Moore’s customer of the year.
But what would you look for on the positive side of the ledger? What would you want to confirm as being in good shape? You would want to know that the foundation was not cracked, not coming apart, and you would want to know that her “bones” were solid. You would want a straight roof line, with not a hint of the swayback in it. You would not want spongy floor trusses.
Now I want to argue that the American character today is still largely shaped by three doctrinal assumptions that were common American assumptions during the Founding era, and which remain great blessings for us today. We are still living off the interest of that legacy endowment. They are the reason the lines are still good. And not to keep you in suspense, Calvinism is the foundation, postmillennialism the roof line, and evangelicalism the floor trusses.
Hold on, hold on. I will explain. Cool your baby jets.
What This is Not Saying
There are two major things that I am not saying. Please note the presence of that crucial word not.
I am not saying that everything good about America came from Calvinistic postmill evangelicals. When writing about historical causation, you should never come across as though you think history is as direct and as easy to understand as putting the eight ball in the corner pocket. We are talking about centuries and millions of people. So I am not saying that the frontier revivalists did nothing worthwhile, not saying that Irish Catholics did everything wrong, and I am not denying the Bible belt dispensationalists their place of honor in Stephen Wolfe’s lone bulwark. If I had a cap, I would be happy to doff it. Good job, everybody.
In the second place, neither am I saying that these three doctrinal goods are incapable of corruption and distortion. If you remove the love of Jesus Christ from any of these three doctrinal emphases, you get terrible results—really bad stuff. You know, zombie doctrine. When Calvinism goes to seed you get Unitarian wokescolds. When postmillenialism goes to seed you get Woodrow Wilson making the world safe for democracy, with a couple of world wars thrown in. When evangelicalism goes to seed you get pot smoking libertarians.
Bear with me. I see that raised hand and your questioning face. I can surmise that your question is running along the lines of wut?
The Bones are Good
The necessity of limited government is the legacy of Calvinism. If there is no sovereign God above the state, then the state will always want to become the sovereign God. Our entire legal and constitutional framework is predicated upon an understanding of the sinfulness and depravity of man. The American Constitution presupposes throughout its entire structure the fallenness of man—as opposed to his perfectability. The Founders laid the foundation in the way they did because they were operating in an overwhelmingly Calvinistic milieu. If Christ is Lord then Caesar isn’t. If man is fallen, we need checks and balances. We need separation of powers. Read the Institutes, man.
The secularists and progressives always lust after frictionless power. They set their machinations just a-going and bam, they run smack into the Electoral College. And average rank-and-file Americans today, provided they have not been wrecked by a prestigious education somewhere, still understand the value of limited government.
Second, the spirit of can-do historical optimism, an attitude that is characteristically American to this day, is entirely downstream from the eschatological optimism of the Founding era. That is when the framing of the house was going up and it went up a certain way.
If you grew up in a particular house, you would be accustomed to it in such a way as to prevent you from looking at it and saying, “Oh, an Arts and Crafts house.” It is just home to you. But outsiders can see the lines clearly. I was talking with a Brit friend one time, and he was bemoaning the state of the educational options for his children. Everything was a total mess—and it really was. So I said something that I thought was totally reasonable, which was, “Why don’t you start a school?” And he astonished me with his response to that, which was, “That is just so American.” Jerry Falwell Sr., a premill guy if ever there was one, still wanted to build out Liberty University as a Protestant Notre Dame. His formal eschatology thought everything was going to burn, possibly in a matter of weeks, but his default eschatology, inherited from Jonathan Edwards, spoke rather loudly otherwise. I conclude this point by citing the motto of the Seabees, U.S. Navy’s construction workers in WW2: “The difficult we can do right away. Impossible takes a little longer.”
The evangelical emphasis was solidified by the Great Awakening, which occurred shortly before our War for Independence. That revival was driven by the conviction that people go to Heaven or Hell by ones. It was individuals who were saved, or not. One of the deleterious effects of this has been a disparagement of the institutional church, but one of the positive effects of it was the emphasis on individual responsibility. A republic depends for its success on the moral agency felt by every citizen. As John Adams put it, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” You can readily see what happens when this definition of it deteriorates—you get an insistence on individual privileges instead of individual agency and responsibility, hence my earlier comment about pot-smoking libertarians.
So do you think that government should be bounded and restrained? Thank the Calvinists. Do you think there is a virtuous version of the American Dream out there, where you can expect your kids to be more blessed materially than you have been? Thank the postmillennialists. Do you decry the erosion of individual responsibility? That instinctive conviction was handed down to you by the evangelicals. You don’t like it when nobody is held responsible for things they say or do, but they are held responsible for things their ancestors did. Good for you, and I trace that good impulse back to the preaching of Whitefield.
Reform Really Is Possible
Reformation and revival has happened in America before, and it can happen here again. We labor to split and stack the hard wood, the kind of wood which, if kindled, will burn for a long time. It is not our job to make the fire fall, but it is our task to pray for the fire to fall. It is our task to be laboring to be ready if God is kind and it does fall. Not that we would be fully ready, but you know.
Back to the metaphor of the house. I acknowledge that we are in a bad way. But the bones are still good. What we don’t need is renovators in the line of Dinesh, wanting to critique the few remaining good things about the house. He thinks he is helping, but he is wanting to tear out a support wall.
Nor do we need the solutions of the post-everything guys, yearning for a Protestant Pinochet. That is like wanting a Protestant Pope Alexander VI, which clearly would have too many internal tensions involved. What we need is a Protestant Gray Champion.
Nor do we need any versions of Christless conservatism. Are you expecting me to say it again? Sure, and I’ll keep on saying it. It is Christ or chaos.