“Open Thy Hand Wide”: Moses, Calvin & the Origins of American Liberalism

This morning I saw that Al Mohler–a prominent spokesperson for what is called conservative evangelical and, most interestingly for the purposes of this discussion, Reformed, Christianity had shared a short piece in the National Review with the alarming subtitle:

“Schools see it as their job to make kids reject their parents’ conservative values.”

The author, Dennis Prager, is perhaps not known for moderation in his opinions, but I found the piece a fascinating example of exactly the kind of polarization in thinking that Marilynne Robinson describes in the introduction to her book The Death of Adam, a collection of essays that all

“assert, in one way or another, that the prevailing view of things can be assumed to be wrong, and that its opposite, being its image or shadow, can also be assumed to be wrong. They undertake to demonstrate that there are other ways of thinking, for which better arguments can be made.”

In the post, Prager pits equality against liberty, a “secular America” against a “God-centered one” and “multiculturalism” against a “unifying American identity.” His values–and those of his readers–are the older, more traditional values. He assumes that one either must regard America as

 ” ‘the last best hope of earth’  or else little more than an imperialist, racist, and xenophobic nation.”

It is notable that the article is titled “Conservative Parents, Left-Wing Children,” as if “liberal” were too kind a word to apply to these prodigals. Re-reading Robinson’s When I Was A Child I Read Books recently, I enjoyed her discussion of the term as it occurs in English Puritan translations of the Bible, and in Puritan thought more generally.

“in Renaissance French, liberal meant ‘generous,’ and of course the word occurs in the English Puritan translations, the Matthew’s Bible and the Geneva Bible, which were followed in their use of the term by the 1611 Authorized [King James] Version.”

Robinson, who is well-known as an admirer of John Calvin’s who just so happens to have read the man’s works carefully and extensively (perhaps exhaustively), argues that the concept of ‘liberality’ comes from Deuteronomy 15:13-14 and is “central to American social thought from its beginning.”

She quotes Calvin’s sermon on that text:

“If we thank God with our mouthes, confessing that it is he which hath blessed us, & in the mean while make none account of such as he has sent to doe us service in the increase of our living, by taking paynes and toyle for us; all our thanking of him is but lip-labor & utter hypocrisy.”

and again on the question of begging and provision for the apparently unworthy:

“if a man forbid begging, & therewithal doe no almes at all it is as much as if he did cut the throtes of those that are in necessitie. Nay, we must so provide for the poore, and redresse their want, that such as are stout beggars and apparently seeme not to be pitied may be reformed.

We do this not because they are deserving, Calvin says, but because of the image of God in them. From Calvin’s Institutes: 

“The Lord commands us to do ‘good unto all men,’ universally, a great part of whom, estimated according to their own merits, are very undeserving; but here the Scriptures assists us with an excellent rule, when it inculcates, that we must not regard the intrinsic merit of men, but must consider the image of God in them, to which we owe all possible honor and love.”

Robinson then shows how John Winthrop, in his famous address to the newly arrived Puritans in Massachussetts in 1630 (“A Modell of Christian Charity”) makes a similar argument for generosity, and how that man known little more than for one fiery sermon, Jonathan Edwards, made a similar case again, going further to insist that

“The proper objects of our liberality are not limited to ‘those of the same people and religion’ [yea, a plea for tolerance and multiculturalism from this "intolerant" Puritan father!?] because ‘our enemies, those that abuse us and injure us, are our neighbours, and therefore come under the rule of loving our neighbours as ourselves.”

Edwards, like Calvin and Winthrop, insist that there can be no exception or excuse to liberality. Edwards, in a most un-libertarian fashion, even says that relief provided “by the town” (of which he does not, apparently, disapprove) still does not excuse the Christian from her obligation. Here is Edwards:

“[I]t is too obvious to be denied, that there are in fact persons so in want, that it would be a charitable act in us to help them, notwithstanding all that is done by the town.

Nor is there any sense that charity is only for those who are completely destitute:

“It does not answer to the rules of Christian charity to relieve only those who are reduced to extremity.”

Finally, Robinson again:

“There is clearly a feeling abroad [in that National Review piece!] that God smiled on our beginnings, and that we should return to them as we can. If we really did attempt to return to them, we would find Moses as well as Christ, Calvin, and his legions of intellectual heirs. And we would find a recurrent, passionate insistence on bounty or liberality, mercy and liberality, on being kind and liberal, liberal and bountiful…[t]hese phrases are all [Jonathan] Edwards’s and there are many more like them.”

So going back to where I started–that “Reformed” Christian leader’s recommendation of the piece that urges a return to “Judeo-Christian” and “traditional American” values, I can only paraphrase the inimitable Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride:

“You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.”

And that probably goes for those who’d claim the label ‘liberal’ but who see religion–and especially Christianity and certainly people like John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards–as enemies of their cause. I suspect that the truth may be far less easily divided along ideological lines.

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About Rachel Marie Stone
  • laurie

    Very interesting – makes me like Calvin and the Puritans better than I did :-). Just one correction though – Dennis Prager is neither Reformed nor Evangelical; he is Jewish. However, I’ll agree that he is liked by those of a more conservative bent, including Reformed and Evangelical Christians.

    • //www.patheos.com/blogs/rachelmariestone Rachel Marie Stone

      I didn’t think Dennis Prager was a Reformed evangelical–just the guy endorsing him. :)

    • //www.patheos.com/blogs/rachelmariestone Rachel Marie Stone

      I wasn’t clear: Dennis Prager was being recommended BY a reformed evangelical. :)

      Sent from my iPhone

  • //timfall.wordpress.com/ Tim

    When I hear people say that the only way to follow God is to close the borders and stop helping the poor and deny a responsibility to those who are on the outside looking in, then I know that the god they want to follow is not the God that Christ revealed.

    • //www.patheos.com/blogs/rachelmariestone Rachel Marie Stone

      Yes & amen.

  • //communicatingacrossboundaries.wordpress.com Marilyn

    Oh such a great article. Not least because you quoted my favorite “You killed my father” Inigo Montoya. I’ve thought much about the term liberal — probably partially because of the misuse on both sides of the aisle. My British friends tell me they use liberal in a completely different way, that only some use it in what they term as the “American exported version” which means left leaning etc. Their use is more in the importance, worth of an individual as compared to the worth of society. That fundamentally a person is of more moral worth than the group as a whole, or society as a whole. This use of the word strikes me as much more in line with what you have quoted from Robinson.

    • //www.patheos.com/blogs/rachelmariestone Rachel Marie Stone

      Yes, I believe that is how Robinson uses “liberal.” In another essay she writes:

      “I myself am a liberal. By that I mean I believe society exists to nurture and liberate the human spirit, and that large-mindedness and openhandedness are the means by which these things are to be accomplished. I am not ideological. By that I mean I believe opportunities of every kind should be seized upon to advance the well-being of people, especially in assuring them decent wages, free time, privacy, education, and health care, concerns essential to their full enfranchisement.”

  • dad

    You just have to love an article that thoughtfully combines John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and Inigo Montoya…

    “I just work for Fezzini to pay the bills– there is not much money in revenge.”

  • //cindybrandt.wordpress.com Cindy Brandt

    “If we thank God with our mouthes, confessing that it is he which hath blessed us, & in the mean while make none account of such as he has sent to doe us service in the increase of our living, by taking paynes and toyle for us; all our thanking of him is but lip-labor & utter hypocrisy.” Calvin’s words are a timely response to the 30 days of thanksgiving going around Facebook this month.

    I like the phrase lip-labor. Added to my vocab vault.

    Thanks for the post!

  • dad

    “If we thank God with our mouthes, confessing that it is he which hath blessed us, & in the mean while make none account of such as he has sent to doe us service in the increase of our living, by taking paynes and toyle for us; all our thanking of him is but lip-labor & utter hypocrisy.”

    So then, how many U.S. evangelicals spend the last week of November thanking God for all the stuff brought to them by people whose interests they vote against on the first week..?

    • //www.patheos.com/blogs/rachelmariestone Rachel Marie Stone

      Zing!

    • //timfall.wordpress.com/ Tim

      There you go again, making sense!

  • dad

    I’m just so upset by all these “illegals” running around ruining our country that I think I’ll take a drive out to the North Fork and visit all the lovely farms and vineyards staffed by..?


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