Calvin inKleinAtions

Kelly ponders in his latest, cleverly-named article, Calvin and Hobbes, if the views of sixteenth-century theologian Reformation leader John Calvin toward the poor have infested modern-day America's views of the poor. The implication is, I would think, that those who do not believe government welfare programs are (1) constitutional or (2) proper functions of government do not believe that the poor are worth helping, supporting, etc.

While this proposition is tidy, it is too clever by half and paints a view of the truth both too simple and one-sided. Calvin's theological positions on predestination cannot be used to suggest that Calvin generally blamed the poor for their own plight. While he was a staunch defender of private property as a means for Christians to provide for the needs of themselves and their families, he was just as adamant that Christians should use their earnings over and above their own needs to help the suffering and dispossessed.

In his commentary on Isaiah 58:7 Calvin writes,

Uprightness and righteousness are divided into two parts: first, that we should injury nobody, and second, that we should bestow our wealth and abundance on the poor and needy. And these two ought to be joined together, for it is not enough to abstain from acts of injustice, if you refuse your assistance to the needy, nor will it be of much avail to render your aid to the needy, if at the same time you rob some of that which you bestow on others….

By commanding them to ‘break bread to the hungry’ he intended to take away every excuse from covetous and greedy men, who allege that they have a right to keep possession of that which is their own. ‘This is mine, and therefore I may keep it for myself. Why should I make common property of that which God has given me?’ He replies, ‘It is indeed yours, but on this condition, that you share it with the hungry and thirsty, not that you eat it yourself alone. And indeed this is the dictate of common sense, that the hungry are deprived of their just right if their hunger is not relieved. That sad spectacle extorts compassion even from the cruel and barbarous.

I would submit that Kelly points to a strain in Christian (Protestant) ethics that brings to light a more nuanced difference between liberals and conservatives regarding the role of government in helping the poor. The difference between them is over how to help the poor, not whether to help the poor.

The conservative position draws forth from the old Protestant work ethic that work is a vital expression of service to God and the world and that a person cannot honor who they are in God if they do not contribute to the world through their work. When coupled with the ancient biblical mandate to God's people to make provisions for the poor, we are closer to understanding the conservative position that a man is only whole when he his working in his field of calling (what he was created to do, gifted to do, passionate about, etc) and that the social safety net is there for those who stumble as a temporary hand up to get back on his feet, not a hand out that consigns him to the downward spiral of dependence. This latter destroys a man's (and woman's) sense of self and short-circuits his or her ultimate potential contributions to society. Notice here the importance of the social safety net being provided by civil society, not civil government.

The liberal view that the only way to help the poor is through the government not only works over time to destroy the man and his sense of self and sense of obligation to the community, but it also works over time to destroy the community by creating a permanent underclass of dependence and by diverting the government from its own proper role in providing for the general welfare (the good of society as a whole) and the common defense. The fact that liberals suspect conservatives - or constitutionalists - of not caring for the poor unless they support a myriad of government welfare, wealth distribution programs betrays their own skewed view of government, community and what it means to be human.

Nuclear blast or a blast of sanity?

The Democrats in the Senate this past week voted to restrict the use of the filibuster by the minority Party in consideration of presidential executive and non-SCOTUS judicial nominees. As this blog has called for since 2007, this is a move whose time is past due, especially given the increasing partisanship of Congress and Washington DC and the increased difficulty to move anything legislative along.

What is disappointing, however, is the hypocrisy demonstrated by both Parties on this matter. In 2005, Republicans were decrying the use of the filibuster to stymie President Bush's nominations while the Democrate were clutching to the sacred tool of the minority to defeat the designs of an "imperialist President." Even Senator Obama himself called for the respect of the voice of the minority party. Now that the designs of their own (imperialist? - no more so or less than Bush was) president have been thwarted by the Republicans in the Senate (who now love the filibuster as much as the Democrats in 2005), the Democrats can not believe how unfair and antiquated the filibuster is so moved to change it. "Enough is enough," as President Obama proclaimed.

Well then, fair enough as well. I trust the Democrats will be as faithful to their principled stand today when they next stand as the Senate Minority Party.

 

Groupthink

"In the United States, the majority takes charge of furnishing individuals with a host of ready-made options, and it thus relieves them of the obligation to form their own. There are a great number of theories on matters of philosophy, morality or politics that everyone thus adopts without examination, on the faith of the public; and if one looks very closely one will see that religions itself reigns there much less as revealed doctrine than as common opinion."

--Tocqueville

Calvin and Hobbes

Have the ideas of John Calvin influenced the current debate over the role of government in the United States?

I've been listening to a course about European history and the development of Western Civilization. It is quite eye-opening how many parallels exist between events from centuries ago and those of today's age.  In the time between the Roman Empire and World War I there was no shortage of princes, kings, empires and the privileged classes that seemingly always surround those in power.  The idea of "the divine right of kings" was accepted on faith, somewhat through theological arguments but I think mostly it was due to the simple fact that people who argue with those in power tend to lead much shorter lives (can we say, gaining an up close perspective with the business ends of blades and/or ropes), so let's call that pragmatism which over time became a matter of custom.  It was just the way things were. 

When Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan he set the world to thinking about new ways to think about the relationship between the state and the individual, like the civil society or the social contract.
So when the reform movement began it was easy to divide the groups into those who fought for change (liberals) and those who defended the status-quo (conservatives).  

While it is informative to review the list of ideas resisted by conservatives, I will leave that for another article.  I want to focus on John Calvin and Geneva. Calvin was one of the reformers who wanted to return to a simpler church, one that focused on the Bible more so than centuries of doctrine and orthodoxy.   Some of the attitudes were that the poor were that way due to some moral failing, and thus shouldn't complain but work to be more pious instead because they must be being punished by God. Calvin believed that the power of the State was needed to insure people would not sin and instituted a rigid set of policies of private behavior along with system of informers to make sure that no sin went undiscovered nor unpunished regardless how small or venial.  Another view was that since everyone's fate was predestined, one should not resist whatever plight might befall but rather embrace it as the will of God.  Both attitudes meant it became easy if not acceptable to dismiss the poor as 'not my problem' or 'they must be lazy'. Calvin's theology was strong enough to being an entire city under his influence, stifling dissent even to the point of burning critics like Servetus at the stake for heresy with very little room for tolerance(*).
 
That brings me to the modern day and political debates on reformist ideas like minimum wage, healthcare, food stamps, immigration, spending policies, and the like.  In the comment section of some article not unlike one about the Texas healthcare system and its poorest citizens, one commenter bravely described her 3 bouts with cancer, not being able to hold down a job, barely being able to afford cancer treatments - and the someone had the gall to reply with 'get a job!'.  Yes that person may be trolling but the sentiment seems to be a common one these days and it really exposes an attitude by a large number of people who refuse to emphasize with others. Maybe they are so overwhelmed by stories of the downtrodden that they've become convinced that the world can't be that bad and evidence otherwise must be either hoaxes or from swindlers gaming the system.  The danger with this new attitude is that it reveals a callous nature, if not outright selfishness. 

Here we come full circle, and the question of the day: have the beliefs of Calvin instituted in Geneva been reconstituted in America? 


(*) From the John Calvin Wikipedia article,

Following the execution of Servetus, a close associate of Calvin, Sebastian Castellio, broke with him on the issue of the treatment of heretics. In Castellio's Treatise on Heretics (1554), he argued for a focus on Christ's moral teachings in place of the vanity of theology,^[97] and he afterward developed a theory of tolerance based on biblical principles.^[98]