In the United States, in the 21st Century, we are living under the thrall of a 16th Century Christian reformer.
Most of us are familiar with Martin Luther, who broke away from the Catholic Church in 1517, famously nailing his “95 Theses” to the door of Wittenberg's Castle Church. Less familiar, but arguably as influential, was a Frenchman named Jehan Cauvin who is now known as John Calvin. He and his followers made a further break from the church a few years later, establishing the practice of “Calvinism”. The crux of Calvinist thought may be found in an article on the subject in Wikipedia:
“Calvin thought original sin was ‘a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all the parts of the soul.’ Calvin asserted people were so warped by original sin that ‘everything which our mind conceives, meditates, plans, and resolves, is always evil.’ The depraved condition of every human being is not the result of sins people commit during their lives. Instead, before we are born, while we are in our mother's womb, ‘we are in God's sight defiled and polluted.’ Calvin thought people were justly condemned to hell because their corrupted state is ‘naturally hateful to God.’”
One might surmise from this that most humans were naturally hateful to Calvin, as well.
Calvinism came to America with the Puritans. In our mythology, this infamously strict group of worshipers left England to escape religious persecution by the Church of England, but they were not above doing a little persecuting of their own—primarily of their Catholic neighbors. From the perspective of those they left behind, it was “good riddance”.
In today’s America, some of our more vocal politicians are spreading the falsehood that our nation and Constitution were products of Christian thinking. This is easily disproved by reading the documents of the Founders, who were largely Deists* influenced by philosophers of The Enlightenment such as Voltaire and Rousseau. The idea of a separation of Church and State grew out of their lived experience of an all-powerful church and corrupt king.
Despite the strong leaning against the influence of religion, the ideas of Calvinism have seeped into our culture so profoundly that we accept some as fundamental truths without giving them a second thought. The greatest harm comes from the idea of “moral failings”. Here is a sampling:
- Drug addiction. Today, this is well known to be a mental health issue but it is treated as a crime committed by people with weak moral character.
- Bankruptcy. Although we are quick to forgive businesses for going under, we heap scorn on individuals who go broke, even though the same forces may be responsible for both.
- Poverty. Someone once wrote that if you were to slice out all references to the poor in the Bible, there would not be enough paper left to hold the book together. In America, the poor are not seen as those who will inherit “the Kingdom of God”, but as a drain on society who need to “pull [themselves] up by their bootstraps”.
- Body size. Shaming people for being “overweight” is nothing new, but it is much more prevalent these days. Thus, even though your body size may be as a result of genetics or born of the unhealthy diets pushed by the food industry, you are subject to ridicule, and dismissed as lacking the will to improve yourself.
But the concept of moral failings implies that there is also a means of moral success. Is this possible? Some would assert that there is an absolute standard applicable to all, while others contend that morality has changed over time as we embrace different ways of being in the world. Given this, how can we even begin to decide where success or failure lie?
One thing is certain, though. Continuing to use our unspoken Calvinistic standards to judge our fellow humans will result in more misery for those who are seen to fail, and more anxiety for the rest of us as we attempt to cope with the results. Perhaps in some brighter day, we will learn, as a society, to treat the misfortunes of our fellows with compassion. Human foibles will never be a thing of the past, but by embracing them as a part of our nature and not our “hereditary corruption and depravity”, we may emerge into a new era of enlightenment.
* Deism is the belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe.
