M<\/span>atthew Tuininga\u2019s Calvin\u2019s Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church<\/em><\/a> aims to be more than an historical study of Calvin\u2019s \u201ctwo kingdoms\u201d political theology. Tuininga wants to demonstrate that Calvin\u2019s theology is a neglected resource for contemporary Christian political engagement.<\/p>\n According to Calvin, Christ rules everything in order to transform all things into a future heavenly kingdom. In the present age, humanity is governed by two \u201csharply differentiated\u201d orders or governments: the spiritual government of the Church, which anticipates the age to come, and the order of political life, which exists to preserve temporal life. The former \u201chas the power to restore humans to spiritual righteousness, true virtue, and eternal life,\u201d whereas the latter \u201ccan only establish outward, civil, and temporal versions of the same.\u201d Church and state are both ruled by the ascended Christ, and the two kingdoms overlap and interpenetrate, but the distinction enables Calvin to limit church authority to word and sacraments, and to maintain a sober realism about the limitations of temporal power.<\/p>\n Calvin\u2019s refusal to draw \u201csimplistic\u201d political inferences from Scripture, his use of natural law, his insistence on the Church\u2019s independence from political power, and his recognition of the limits of both temporal and spiritual kingdoms are valuable resources for Christians living in secular societies. Calvin provides \u201cresources for a substantive Christian critique of the ideal of Christendom.\u201d<\/p>\n Calvin the political theologian is definitely worth reading, and Tuininga\u2019s detailed exposition of Calvin\u2019s two kingdoms theology is valuable. His effort to apply Calvin to contemporary politics is less successful.<\/p>\n Near the beginning of the book, Tuininga takes brief notice of recent theological critiques of liberalism, but it\u2019s not clear he has grasped the objections. He defines liberal democracy as a system of representative, democratic government erected to protect rights \u201cin accord with the rule of law under a system of checks and balances that includes the separation of church and state.\u201d\u00a0Virtually none of liberalism\u2019s theological critics objects to these forms and procedures as such. Their complaint isn\u2019t against representative government or voting or freedom of speech and association. No one advocates a fusion of Church and state.<\/p>\n Rather, they\u00a0claim that such a formal, procedural description masks the basic thrust of liberalism. Liberalism\u2019s stated<\/em> aim is to construct a society without substantive commitments, leaving everyone free to choose whatever his or her or hir own may be. Liberalism\u2019s common good is to protect society from adopting any single vision of the common good. That\u2019s a deviation from classical and traditional Christian politics (including Calvin\u2019s), which sought to orchestrate common life toward a common end\u2014the cultivation of virtue or the glory of God. In fact\u2014and this is the other side of the critique\u2014liberal societies do<\/em> have substantive commitments. The liberal state pretends to be a referee, but beneath the striped shirt it wears the jersey of the home team. Under the cover of neutrality, liberal order embodies, encourages, and sometimes enforces an anthropology, ecclesiology, and vision of the good society that is often starkly at odds with Christian faith. Tuininga never confronts that line of analysis.<\/p>\n The big challenge for someone who wants to enlist Calvin in a defense of liberalism is, well, Calvin himself, who is often, as Tuininga admits, illiberal in theory and in practice. Much to his credit, Tuininga attempts to face this challenge head-on. He acknowledges that, for Calvin, civil rulers are responsible for the \u201ccare of religion\u201d and that rulers ought to \u201cconsecrate their work to the promotion of Christ\u2019s kingdom\u201d (Calvin\u2019s words). With certain qualifications, Calvin even defends capital punishment for false teachers. That<\/em>, to put it mildly, ain\u2019t liberal.<\/p>\n More broadly, Calvin teaches that civil government exists for something more than the protection of individual choice. On one hand, civil order isn\u2019t to \u201cenforce true virtue\u201d; yet, on the other hand, the civil ruler ought to promote true religion. One would have thought that true religion had some relation to true virtue. Tuininga is right that Calvin never claims that \u201ccivil government is a means of grace by which God justifies or sanctifies human beings,\u201d but who ever thought otherwise? Besides, Tuininga admits that Calvin believes that \u201ccivil coercion may be an indirect<\/em> aid to sanctification\u201d (my emphasis) and that civil government should attend to \u201cspiritual realities, the conscience, the soul, piety, and the inner mind.\u201d Because Tuininga hasn\u2019t grappled with the theological critique of liberalism, he doesn\u2019t fully recognize the anti-liberal force of Calvin\u2019s positions.<\/p>\n To sustain his argument, Tuininga has to save Calvin from himself, skimming off the illiberal husk to get to the liberal-friendly kernel. Whenever the two Calvins are in conflict, Tuininga argues that the liberal-leaning is more foundational. It\u2019s not convincing, because the tension is largely of Tuininga\u2019s making. Still, it is testimony to his care as a scholar that he presents enough evidence to sustain a thesis diametrically opposed to his own. The Calvin Tuininga portrays might easily be enlisted as a critic of liberalism and a spokesman for a modified, Protestant Christendom.<\/p>\n Peter J. Leithart is President of\u00a0<\/em>Theopolis Institute<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Become a fan of\u00a0<\/em>First Things<\/em><\/span>\u00a0on\u00a0Facebook<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>subscribe to<\/em>\u00a0First Things<\/em><\/span>\u00a0via\u00a0RSS<\/a>, and follow\u00a0<\/em>First Things<\/em><\/span>\u00a0on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matthew Tuininga\u2019s Calvin\u2019s Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church aims to be more than an historical study of Calvin\u2019s \u201ctwo kingdoms\u201d political theology. Tuininga wants to demonstrate that Calvin\u2019s theology is a neglected resource for contemporary Christian political engagement. According to Calvin, Christ rules everything in order to transform all things into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1123,100,22,1648,1413],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-calvin","category-liberalism","category-politics","category-public-life","category-religion"],"yoast_head":"\n