I first came across World Magazine in the 1990's after I
returned to the United States and started frequenting Reformed churches. It was
marketed to me as the Christian answer to liberal Time magazine and as it was
easy enough to find copies on book tables in church foyers and other locales I
certainly read my fair share of the magazine.
At the time I was in a state of transition – moving away from
my Right-wing roots and nationalism and in the process of re-thinking the whole
of politics and ethics from a Christian perspective. A serious re-read of the
Scriptures had shaken me and caused me to question most of what I had been
taught growing up.
In all honesty I was not terribly impressed by World
Magazine. I thought I should be – these were the days of Bill Clinton after
all. However, I just wasn't buying into the framing, the narrative and on many
points I could not accept the assumptions being made. I've talked about this on
numerous occasions. As a new convert I had been confronted with the likes of Francis
Schaeffer and Theonomy and in many cases even though I couldn't give a full
fleshed-out answer to these men and movements my diligent and fairly aggressive
reading of Scripture led me to believe they were wrong.
Over the next few years as I learned more theology, history,
some philosophy and Scripture, I was able to understand just how wrong they
were.
Having left the Reformed world in the mid-2000's I didn't
give much thought to World magazine. I ran into again in the waiting room at a
doctor's office in 2007 – a doctor that I ended up wanting nothing to do with.
Recently the magazine had a radio offer – you could get a few
complimentary issues with no obligation. I was curious and signed up. I wasn't
expecting much but as it had been a good fifteen-plus years since I had really
bothered to sit down and read an issue, I thought it might be interesting.
I have to say that it's worse than I remember it being in the
1990's. Its agenda is not always overt and there's a kind of simplistic subtlety
to how things are framed. There are lots of little messages and assumptions being
communicated. This happens with all news to be sure but I found World to be
more than a little slanted, sometimes disingenuous and in other cases just flat
misleading – sometimes offensively so.
The grand assumption is that of Dominionism – something
Marvin Olasky has always trumpeted. It's clear the debate is over in those
circles. I guess I knew this a couple of decades ago but I did find it interesting
to note how that in many ways the magazine has turned more to the Right – even
while in other respects becoming less conservative. In keeping with the general
trajectory in Reformed and Evangelical circles, there's an embrace of feminism
and a rather broad approach to culture and even pop culture that would have
raised some eyebrows twenty or thirty years ago.
As is often the case when it comes to this sort of thing, the
laudable elements have decayed and the dubious aspects of the movement have
been amplified. There's definitely a 'big tent' approach to World. It still has
a mildly Reformed (more New Calvinist) flavour but in many ways it has
succumbed to the Evangelical ethos with all its compromise and worldliness on
display. And no surprise. In fact, it's a necessary development and to be
expected.
In this linked piece, Marvin Olasky (the name most associated
with World) lays out what the magazine is really all about. The magazine is
about the transformation of culture which necessarily includes and in fact
heavily relies upon politics. That's the real drive that's always in the
background. This piece from World is a helpful reminder as to why I cannot
accept the label of Calvinism – even though many would identify me as something
of a Calvinist or at least on the fringe of the Reformed world. This social
posture and ethics is not the only reason I reject the label but it was the
Social Calvinism (as Olasky calls it) that started to really put me off and
cause me to question the larger narrative even back in the 1990's. As I've
previously reported, I remember reading Kuyper's Stone Lectures in 1998 (the
one hundred year anniversary no less) and being appalled at not just his
ignorance but his theology – and certainly his ethics.
It took a few years but I began to understand the larger
complex of Reformed theology and why I was forced in light of Scripture to ultimately
reject it.
This is interesting in light of today's debates as there are
many New Calvinist and Calvinistic Baptist types that are very keen on the
Sovereignty of God and yet have little interest in the larger orb of Reformed
thought. On the one hand it's frustrating, on the other hand encouraging but in
other respects their passive rejection of the older and larger spectrum of
thought is simply replaced by Evangelical inclinations and norms – which is hardly
something to get excited about.
Also, there is at present a debate raging over the Church's
role in terms of pursuing a deliberate social agenda. There are Right-wing very
politically minded individuals who reject the very notion, or have convinced
themselves that they do. Hardly separatists they simply believe the Church's
task should not be confused with the role of fixing society. That said, they
are happy to embrace coercive (but somewhat camouflaged) Christianisation
policies and pursue (what they deem to be) a moral agenda which often overlaps
with the project pursued by the Christian Right. They're pro-Wall Street,
pro-Pentagon, pro-police and openly celebrate American culture and the empire
and are happy to have it identified as being Christian. But they don't think
that the Church should try and get involved in working with the state to alleviate
poverty, racism or correcting historical wrongs. It's a rather self-serving,
politically convenient and disingenuous position to take.
Their real dispute is not with Social Christianity per se but
with Centrist and what are sometimes deemed as Left-leaning expressions of it.
As Olasky's piece makes clear there are not a few Calvinists
that know they cannot legitimately claim the heritage and yet reject an active
role for the Church in pursuing social transformation. This is part of the
Magisterial Reformation heritage. What they're really against is anything that
isn't overtly Right-wing. It's an interesting if peculiarly American expression
of Social Calvinism.
These nuances and commitments make for a confusing debate
field. Add in the fact that some confuse Right-wing inclinations with being
socially conservative and the fog only grows thicker.
World Magazine plays a role in these debates. It does not
stand with the anti-Social Christianity camp as the Olasky piece makes clear
but at the same time in many respects the magazine isn't really that socially
conservative. As such, there are those on the margins who won't like it but in
many respects the magazine's 'shifts' have kept up with, followed and perhaps
even helped to guide the larger changes taking place within the
Evangelical-Reformed sphere.
This isn't a particularly profound observation but it's interesting
how the magazine has managed to remain influential – changing even as it puts
forward a narrative that claims to be in keeping with history and its heritage.
In one respect the socially minded Calvinism of Olasky is
more in keeping with the Reformed heritage than those who drafted and signed
the 2018 Dallas Statement against Social Justice.
But on the other hand, the social ethos of the Olasky crowd,
not to mention The Gospel Coalition is at odds with historic Calvinism. It's
interesting but confusing to be sure. Things change. Things stay the same.
At this point I would like to offer a few comments on
Olasky's Social Calvinism piece.
In section one, he makes the frequent and misleading argument
that the Medieval Church engendered a radical division between sacred and
secular callings. This isn't entirely true. The Roman Church had a more subtle
understanding of nature and grace than the leading movements of the
Reformation. They understood that one could be a magistrate and be a Christian
but it was a higher calling to pursue a full time churchly vocation. It was
Christendom after all. You can't accuse medieval Romanism of promoting Two
Kingdom theology.
Olasky represents the kind of monistic response – the utter
rejection of not only nature-grace dualism in any form but even any hint of
duality. The monistic trajectory of modern Dominionism can be pretty stunning
at times – sacralising everything to the point of flirting with pantheism and
confusing the creation with the Creator.
He quotes Calvin and the Genevan Reformer is certainly more
of one mind with Olasky on this point than he would be with Rome, let alone the
radical nature-grace dualism expressed by the Anabaptists or old 20th
century Fundamentalism – but it must be stated that 19th and 20th
century Calvinism, especially in light of Enlightenment secularisation has
taken this concept to new heights (if that's how one wishes to see it).
Calvin's error on this point is glaring but his sacralising
of the magisterial office – brings it (the office) into the Kingdom and as such
the state contributes to the Kingdom's growth and advancement. The sword
(contrary to New Testament teaching) is made holy and the Kingdom is (as a
consequence) built and advanced by its utilisation. In terms of social Calvinism,
this is but one of its many destructive heresies.
And in terms of narrative, the confusion of the Kingdom of
Christ with Protestant Western Civilisation has generated such confusion and resulted
in the mythology Olasky expresses – that the Enlightenment driven Masonic
American Founders were influenced by such Calvinist thinking to enter politics.
In section two, Olasky celebrates the Reformation's advocacy
of rebellion and violence. While the state is necessary in the fallen world,
the Christian (as per Romans 12 for starters) is not to participate in it and
the New Testament is clear that we do not call upon the state for justice, we
do not look to its sword for aid and that we are called to suffer and even be
defrauded for the glory of Christ. We would rather turn the other cheek
(rejecting the world and laying up treasures in heaven) than to kill men in
order to assert our supposed rights. While our submission has limits, our
response to a sinful command is to refuse – which is a far cry from rebel and
strike back.
Olasky's conclusion in light of Calvin's erroneous statement
is a non sequitir but nevertheless he
is right in this sense – he is the heir of what must be described as a sinful
heritage.
Section three raised my eyebrows as Olasky seems to confuse
the post-Reformation concept of the Divine Right of Kings with the medieval feudal
order. In the Middle Ages kings were bound by custom and restrained (at least
in theory) by feudal obligation and the laws of God as represented by the Roman
Church. Olasky stretches Calvin's thought well beyond where Calvin would have
been willing to go. The Genevan was no democrat or populist – if anything he
had more of an oligarchic conception of the state. Olasky is resorting to the
oft used but still duplicitous juxtaposition of Calvin and the American
Founders. It's just dishonest and misleading.
Calvin's category of 'legitimacy' is in violation of Romans
13. Rulers may be wicked and at times we may have to refuse compliance but that
doesn't change the fact that the powers that be are ordained by God. Now if
another bestial force providentially rises up and overthrows a magistrate and
replaces him – so be it. But we shouldn't be involved. Those who take up the
sword (in any form) will die by it and face condemnation.
Instead Calvin sanctifies rebellion and Olasky sows further
confusion by wedding this error to the 1776 Rebellion when men murdered because
they didn't want to pay their taxes and rejected the (sometimes tyrannical,
sometimes derelict) authority of the British king.
Section four reveals the fact that Calvin was at times a very
poor exegete who employed a defective Judaizing hermeneutic. The Hebrew nation
was not a republic with democratic principles of rights, social contract and
the rest. It was a Covenantal Theocracy and typological and thus to strip it of
its covenantal and Christological frameworks and to apply it ad hoc to some modern nation is not only
bad hermeneutics and theology, its sacrilege.
The Founders as good Enlightenment men had a low view of sin
– something the Calvinistic Puritans did not share. Olasky is reading a little
too much into Calvin here and I suspect he knows it. But ironically in the Enlightenment
Liberal context of modern Western politics Calvinism has all but eschewed its
strong belief in the Fall. They pay lip service to it but their social theory
denies it. They argue that republicanism curbs the sinful proclivities of
tyrannical rulers – even while they seem blind to the dangerous and corrosive
influence of a rights-oriented, liberty-focused, consumerist society – and
indeed Western society has succumbed to utilitarian ethics and libertinism –
the logical outcome of capitalism and liberal democracy. It's a strange social theory
to be promulgated by the supposed proponents of total depravity.