Calvin College recently announced receiving 150 million in their campaign. I’m thrilled. I love Calvin College. I’m sending my son to Calvin College. For me Calvin College is the happiest place on earth and I am not kidding when I say that. I love it that much. Every time I go to the campus for CRHM meetings a part of me jumps for joy. I lived on that campus for 5 years and went to school on it for 9 and those were some of the happiest years of my life. I could go on and on and on about Calvin College.

but… their tagline makes me uncomfortable. To me this sounds triumphalistic. This is the kind of sloganeering I often hear in GR when I’m back there and it always gives me the creeps. The Banner article posted on the “new Calvinism” had some of this too. I’d be much more comfortable with talk of the God’s Spirit renewing God’s world and sometimes he uses us when we’re not getting in the way.

The CRC has toes in both the emergent movement (transformation via social action, social justice, etc.) and the Calvinist movement (by confessions we feel awkward about as related in the “new Calvinism” piece) but in some ways we’ve got the liabilities of both movements. When I hear some of this triumphalist talk I always think “if we really knew how to fix the world then our own communities wouldn’t have the messes they’ve got. Why do we think we can tell others what to do?” When I hear people talking in exalted terms about all the tools and smarts that we have which will “transform lives and communities” I always ask them to give me the location of a “transformED” community. If we’re so smart show me that place where we’ve arrived!? Until then, I’m not buying your program. Sure you can do lots of helpful things. Fine. But in the age of decay they all fall short and we are thrown back down onto our knees seeking God’s face and relying on his power and trusting in his providence that when we don’t see the way he sees still. (My new favorite line: the insufficiency of all things attainable).

I’d feel more comfortable with phrases talking about SEEKING the renewal of God’s world. This would bring in worship and action and relativize our role hopefully reducing the idolatrous temptations of our own agency in the process of renewal. pvk