Reformed seminaries ought to understand Reformed political theology

The good folks over at Internet Monk are reposting Michael Bird’s Aussie evangelical response to the reflexive antipathy white evangelicals in America show toward universal health care.

We discussed that here last week in a post called “American evangelicalism is defined by political tribalism.” Bird and British theologian N.T. Wright are both perplexed by how their fellow followers of Jesus arrive at — or, really, start from — a position opposed to universal health care. These guys would both meet any theological or doctrinal definition of “evangelical,” but they’re living, reading and writing from outside of the American cultural context. Since they don’t share the political tribalism that shapes and defines white evangelical Protestantism in the U.S., they’re startled and bewildered by its cruel callousness.

For a more polite rendition of that tribal, culturally conformed callousness, see Michael J. Kruger’s “Obamacare, N.T. Wright, and the Via Media.” Part of Kruger’s post is a critique of Wright’s instinctive seeking of the “middle ground” — always seeming to seek some place to stand betwixt the liberals and conservatives. Fair enough — that’s often true of Wright, but as Bird notes, Wright is Anglican, and “ever since the Elizabethan Act of Uniformity (1558), via media is how we Anglicans roll.” Criticizing an Anglican for a via media approach is like criticizing a Catholic for being hierarchical — it’s true, but, well, duh.

The really surprising thing about Kruger’s post is that Kruger is a Reformed theologian. He teaches, and serves as president, at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte. Yet Kruger seems wholly unfamiliar with, and wholly ignorant of, Reformed political theology.

That’s more shocking than the credulous falsehoods Kruger swallows and regurgitates as his talking points against universal health care:

Nationalized healthcare is fundamentally on the left side of the political landscape and constitutes a clear move towards a more socialist mode of governance. It is a monumental government power-grab of almost 20 percent of the U.S. economy.

Keep yer gubmint outta Michael Kruger’s Medicare!

The political tribalism shaping the white evangelicalism of folks like Kruger tends to leave them factually challenged, so it’s not surprising that Kruger doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. He imagines some sort of pristine free market in health insurance prior to Obamacare, apparently never having glimpsed the vast kludgeocratic mess of state and federal programs, subsidies, credits and regulations that this new, improved kludgeocratic mess is replacing. (That’s the more charitable interpretation. It seems kinder to Kruger to assume he didn’t know the U.S. was providing a $250 billion-a-year tax subsidy for employer health coverage, rather than to assume that Kruger only opposes subsidies for the working poor but not for corporations.)

Kruger’s ignorance of the existence of Europe’s Christian democratic parties and their long championing of universal health care — a fight often influenced by Reformed and Catholic political theology — is also shocking for the head of a Reformed seminary:

Wright tries to temper this reality by pointing out that “every other developed country” has nationalized healthcare, implying that American needs to get with the program. But, the fact that America stands alone does not invalidate its approach. Historically speaking, America has always been distinctive from the rest of the globe in precisely this area, namely its commitment towards economic freedom for its citizens, with limited government intervention. One might make the opposite of Wright’s point, namely that what makes America great is its willingness to not join the European socialist program.

“Historically speaking,” Kruger doesn’t know his hat from his hindquarters. If he thinks the many Reformed Christian parties of Europe are part of a “socialist program,” I’d hate to think what he’d make of Calvin’s Geneva.

Let’s be generous, though. Kruger is clearly way out of his depth. He’s a New Testament scholar, and I’m sure he know more about the New Testament than, say, Ezra Klein. Sure Kruger is embarrassingly wrong about the details, reality and history of health care in America and in Europe, and, yes, it would be prudent for him not to sound off on subjects he’s so proudly ignorant about, but if the folks at the Kaiser Foundation ever put out a report on the Synoptic Problem, I bet it would come off just as ignorant and amateurish as Kruger’s attempt to pontificate in their area of expertise.

Still, though, Reformed political theology is not a secret. It’s kind of a big deal. I studied it at a Baptist seminary under a Mennonite professor. It’s one of the few areas where I can find a genuine holy envy of my Calvinist brothers and sisters. I find Calvinist atonement talk monstrous, I think TULIP is an incoherent mess, and I think they’ve barely begun to grasp the way that E.P. Sanders and the new perspective on Paul swept away the ground on which Luther and Calvin built much of their theology, leaving the whole thing suspended, like Wile E. Coyote, over open air above a precipice. (I suspect that last point, by the way, is what motivates much of Kruger’s antipathy toward Wright.) But yet I find Reformed political theology — particularly the whole Kuyperian school of European socialists — to be elegant, constructive and immensely helpful.

I appreciate that political theology is the unwanted stepchild in seminaries. You can’t get a seminary degree without studying, say, Pauline christology, but you can easily graduate without ever having even heard of subsidiarity or sphere sovereignty. Fair enough. Seminaries are training pastors, not prophets. But those pastors are serving congregations made up of citizens and neighbors who have to live as citizens and neighbors. They need more than just sound exegesis, and the whole of theology and Christian political/ethical teaching provides something they need. Seminaries should be teaching political theology too.

Or, at the very least, seminaries ought to be run by people who acknowledge its existence — people who aren’t so woefully ignorant of political theology that they could write something like this:

But third, and most problematic, Wright defends nationalized healthcare on the grounds that “Christians taught that we should care for the poor and disadvantaged.” While I certainly agree this is a Christian value, how does that fact lead one to conclude that the government should be the body doing it?  This simply does not follow. Historically, it was Christians caring for the poor and disadvantaged and not the government!

Sweet holy Dooyeweerd that’s some shameful nonsense.

I’ve come to expect this kind of immature ignorance from nondenominational white evangelicals who are wholly cut off from the rich traditions of Christian political thought, but to see the president of a Reformed seminary parroting this idea of social responsibility as a zero-sum competition is really disheartening.

In Christian political teaching social responsibility is always differentiated, mutual and complementary. It is never exclusive, binary or competitive. In Reformed theology, social responsibility is always differentiated, mutual and complementary. It is never exclusive, binary or competitive.

When you see a Reformed theologian suggesting otherwise, you know without checking that this person is an American and that what they’re saying is not the product of Reformed or Christian teaching, but merely the latest talking points of the political allegiance that defines their tribal identity.