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Meilaender makes a good point. Lutherans have tended to be dangerously vague in their justifications of Lutheran scholarship. And Lutheran colleges have become too secular (ironically, too non-Christian) in their quest for Christian freedom. It is important that Christian scholars across the denominational spectrum try to embody genuine Christianity before exploring confessional peculiarities. But if the scholars at Cal vin have taught us anything, it is the importance of being forthright about the place from which one's thinking takes its rise. In that light, I offer the following remarks on the "Calvin school" of historiography not as an isolated individual, nor as a universal Christian, but as a Lutheran Christian whose admittedly minor differences with the Calvinists derive from a commitment on my part to specifically Lutheran theological principles.
It is probably a bit unfair to speak of a "Calvin school" of historiography. Its members are not mere propagandists, nor do they always agree with one another. Some no longer work at Calvin College. Some never did. Indeed, a few of those who might be included in this historiographical school have never been formally affiliated in any way with Calvin. Since this "school" has become so prominent within the field of Christian history, however, and since its work is so widely respected among historians at large, I have taken the liberty to lump together the leading members of this group, confident that none of them will experience the proverbial guilt by association.
George Marsden appears to many of us to epitomize this school. For many years a professor at Calvin, Marsden has since moved on to Duke and, more recently, Notre Dame. As most readers of this journal know, he has attracted national attention for his early work on fundamentalism as well as for his writings on secularization within the academy. But there are numerous other important members of the Calvin College school. Frank Roberts and Ronald Wells, both of Calvin's history department, have labored for years on the relationship between Christian faith and history.6 James Bratt, department chair, has labored long and hard as well on the Dutch Reformed religious culture that has nurtured Calvin's scholarship.7 Less explicitly Christian scholars such as alumnus Harry Stout (now at Yale) and former professor Dale Van Kley (now at Ohio State) have modeled versions of the Calvin historiography.8 And several others, such as Calvin's provost, Joel Carpenter, and longtime associates Nathan Hatch (provost at Notre Dame) and Mark Noll (of Wheaton College), might be added to this school at least as honorary members.9 In short, the purported membership of the Calvin College school re presents a veritable who's who in the guild of American Christian historians.
If this august array of scholars can be said to share a common goal, it is to demonstrate the difference faith makes in historical interpretation. And insofar as this worthy goal can be said to be grounded theologically, it finds its strongest roots in Abraham Kuyper's theology of culture. As James Bratt's English edition of Kuyper's writings clearly shows, this Dutch statesman and intellectual had a powerful vision for the redemption of culture. As he proclaimed in 1880 at the founding of the Free University of Amsterdam (an institution Kuyper founded on this very theological principle), "Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!' " Consequently, Kuyper felt that the most pressing need of his day was for Calvinists, especially, to reclaim the culture for their Lord. By means of comprehensive Christian reflection in every sphere of human learning they were to build an "all-embracing life system," a "life- and world-view," that would serve to elevate humanity to "a higher stage."10
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