[1].”

German historian Leopold van Ranke famously said, “John Calvin was the virtual founder of America[2].”

Abraham Kuyper in discussing John Calvin said “[e]very competent historian will without exception confirm the words of [American historian George] Bancroft: ‘The fanatic for Calvinism was a fanatic for liberty; and, in the moral warfare of freedom, his creed was his most faithful counselor and his never ailing support[3].’”

The British jurist, historian, and politician James Bryce (1838-1922) wrote in his landmark study, The American Commonwealth:

Someone has said that the American Government and Constitution are based on the theology of Calvin and the philosophy of Hobbes. This at least is true, that there is a hearty Puritanism in the view of human nature which pervades the instrument of 1787. It is the work of men who believed in original sin, and were resolved to leave open for transgressors no door which they could possibly shut. Compare this spirit with the enthusiastic optimism of the Frenchman of 1789. It is not merely a difference of race temperaments; it is a difference of fundamental ideas.[4]

Even more significantly, John Adams (himself an Arminian) wrote:

After Martin Luther had introduced into Germany the liberty of thinking in matters of religion, and erected the standard of reformation, John Calvin, a native of Noyon, in Picardie, of a vast genius, singular eloquence, various erudition, and polished taste, embraced the cause of reformation. In the books which he published, and in the discourses which he held in the several cities of France, he proposed one hundred and twenty-eight articles in opposition to the creed of the Roman Catholic church. These opinions were soon embraced with ardor, and maintained with obstinacy, by a great number of persons of all conditions. The asylum and the centre of this new sect was Geneva, a city situated on the lake anciently called Lemanus, on the frontiers of Savoy, which had shaken off the yoke of its bishop and the Duke of Savoy, and erected itself into a republic, under the title of a free city, for the sake of liberty of conscience. Let not Geneva be forgotten or despised. Religious liberty owes it much respect, Servetus notwithstanding. From this city proceeded printed books and men distinguished for their wit and eloquence, who spreading themselves in the neighboring provinces, there sowed in secret seeds of their doctrine. Almost all the cities and provinces of France began to be enlightened by it.[5]

Specifically on the topic we are covering - church autonomy - the contribution of Calvin was essential. In his understanding of jurisdictions, he recognized that church and state are separate and independent. This is the key theoretical underpinning for the American jurisdictional separation of church and state, and sadly, it is all too often forgotten. So as we continue to write on Church Autonomy doctrine and as we approach the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth, we are grateful for this gentle scholar’s contribution to a proper understanding of Church/State theory. That’s why our banner honors the legacy of Calvin, just as John Adams enjoined us to do.

Addendum: Many people have a hard time taking Calvin seriously as a father of American church-state theory, because they still think of Calvin primarily as the prosecutor of Servetus for heresy. Yet two points should be kept in mind here. First, we have to deal with the intellectual legacy of Calvin whether or not he perfectly adhered to it. And second, the criticism of Calvin is not always applied fairly. His role in the prosecution is often overstated, and other historical figures do not get the same attention. Otto Scott aptly stated the problem:

No Christian leader has been so often condemned by so many. And the usual grounds for condemnation are the execution of Servetus and the doctrine of predestination. Yet Servetus was only one of tens of thousands who went to their deaths in Calvin’s time, and none of their judges ever received the denunciations heaped upon Calvin—who had no civil authority and was not a judge in Geneva. Men of the twentieth century, who have witnessed without moving a finger the arbitrary murders of tens of millions have no ground upon which to stand and judge John Calvin.[6]

The bottom line is that to write off Calvin for his role in Servetus’s death is to miss the (overwhelmingly positive) intellectual legacy of Calvin, from his own writings of the roles of church and state. And to miss out on his intellectual legacy is to impoverish our own understanding of church and state.

[1] The Social Contract and the Discourse on the Origin of Inquality, ed. Lester G. Crocker (New York, 1967), 44n.

[2] Egbert Watson Smith, The Creed of Presbyterians

[3] , Lectures on Calvinsim [1898] repr. edn. (Grand Rapids, MI, 1981), 78 quoting George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, 15th edn., 2 vols. (Boston, 1853), 1:319

[4] James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, 2 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, a 1889), 1:299

[5] 6 John Adams, Essay XIX, in The Works of John Adams 313–14 (Charles Francis Adams ed., 1851).

[6] Otto Scott, Change at the Top, in The Great Christian Revolution: How Christianity Transformed the World 99–100 (Otto Scott ed., 1994).

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District Court Upholds True Meaning of Separation of Church and State

Posted on May 21st, 2008 8:19 PM by Bob Renaud

In the recent case of Klouda v. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary[1], U.S. District Judge John McBryde for the Northern District of Texas ruled in favor of Seminary President and past Southern Baptist Convention President Dr. Paige Patterson in an important decision for everyone concerned with the freedom of the church. The controversy began with Dr. Patterson’s biblical and historic view on the roles of men and women in the local church. This is not the first time Dr. Patterson has come under attack for this reason. Such attacks go back at least to 2004, when he addressed the Biblical passage of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, in which wives are instructed to submit to their husbands.

Now, as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, he again came under attack because he refused to continue employing Mrs. Sherri L. Klouda as a faculty professor of Old Testament languages in the School of Theology. Mrs. Klouda was hired in 2000 and Dr. Paterson assumed the presidency in 2003. In April of 2006 Mrs. Klouda was notified she would be terminated “effective December 31, 2006.” On February 7, 2007, Mrs. Klouda filed a charge of sex discrimination against the Seminary with the EEOC, and in March 2007, Mrs. Klouda sued Southwestern and Dr. Patterson for a myriad of issues, including breach of contract, fraud, promissory estoppel, defamation, sex discrimination under Title VII, and “constructive discharge.”

In the March 19 ruling, Judge John McBryde granted Southwestern and Patterson’s motion for Summary Judgment and dismissed all of the complaints in Klouda’s lawsuit against the Seminary and Dr. Patterson. The principle issue of the motions on behalf of Patterson and the Seminary against the Plaintiff were, to quote Judge McBryde, that the suit was essentially a “challenge [to] an ecclesiastical decision that is protected by the church autonomy doctrine under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, with the consequence that either the court does not have subject matter jurisdiction over the case or all of plaintiff’s claims are barred by the First Amendment religion clauses.”

The key issue here is one of church autonomy (see my previous article and forthcoming law review[2]article). Civil courts do not have the jurisdiction to tell churches what the nature and scope of their religious beliefs can be nor can they get involved in internal church matters such as church discipline or hiring or firing staff members. Judge McBryde citing a string of precedents by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote in his opinion, “the courts are prohibited by the First Amendment from involving themselves in ecclesiastical matters, such as disputes concerning theological controversy, church discipline, ecclesiastical government or the conformity of the members of the church to the standard of morals required.”

Judge McBryde concluded that Mrs. Klouda’s suit against Southwestern and its president, Dr. Paige Patterson, involved such an ecclesiastical matter. He believed this was akin to the “Ministerial Exception” and should be treated the same way the law would treat a dispute between a church and a minister—by keeping their noses out of the dispute.

“[T]he record establishes as a matter of law that the employment decision made by defendants [Southwestern] concerning plaintiff [Klouda] was ecclesiastical in nature,” McBryde wrote. “If the court were to allow plaintiff’s claims to go through the normal judicial processes, the procedural entanglements would be far-reaching in their impact upon [the] seminary as a religious organization.”

Commenting on this decision to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dr. Patterson said Judge McBryde’s decision “has implications for all of our institutions and churches. Americans everywhere may still rejoice in freedom of faith and the ordering of their institutions accordingly.”

It is not known at this time whether or not Mrs. Klouda will appeal the decision. If she does, it is very unlikely that she will succeed on review, based upon the recent church autonomy decisions from other courts.[3]

The Klouda decision is one that we can be thankful for. This is a decision that gets the main issue, and gets it right. Pastors everywhere have yet another court decision that recognizes the independence of the church’s jurisdiction. This is as it should be; the church has autonomy from the state because it was ordained by, and answers to, its only head, Christ.

[1]2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 22157

[2] Robert Joseph Renaud and Lael Daniel Weinberger, Spheres of Sovereignty: Church Autonomy Doctrine and the Theological Heritage of the Separation of Church and State, 35 N. Ky. L. Rev. (forthcoming, Issue 1, May 2008).

[3] See Westbrook v. Penley, 50 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 949 (2007); Harris v. Matthews, 643 S.E.2d 566, (N.C. 2007), and HEB Ministries, Inc., et al. v. Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, et al. 114 SW3d 617 (Tex Sup. Ct. 2007)

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