If to you, “Every square inch” is just the sequence of words plastered above the workout room, then it might be helpful to know that they came from the pen of a Dutch theologian and politician named Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper’s thought, and the thought it inspired, has become central to the mission of Calvin. I think, if we’re smart, we’d throw it out as quickly as we can.

In the third century, the emperor of Rome was baptized and converted to Christianity. This is what historians now call the ‘Constantinian Settlement’. The American theologian Stanley Hauerwas wryly observes that this meant it “no longer took courage to be a Christian, rather, it took courage to not be a Christian.” This is the context out of which Catholic and Orthodox Christianity emerged. It is also the context out of which, more than a millennia later, the Reformation emerged.

Each of these churches accommodated themselves to the rulers of the polities they were within or assumed political power themselves. In the monarchies of medieval Europe, when a prince had a bishop in his pocket, his power was legitimated by the Church. In the nation-states of modernity (Kuyper’s context), having a national church meant you got to baptize children as citizens of the Netherlands and followers of Christ (in that order).

So what happened? How come the President isn’t blessed by the Pope? Why is a social security card not the same thing as a baptismal certificate? In short, the West became secularized. Some blame the Reformation for starting it. No matter who’s at fault, over the last 500 years, being a citizen of a nation and being a member of its church have become disentangled.

Our own nation was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment, principles that dominated this new secularizing age. Some of these principles said that the state shouldn’t tell people what religious group to associate with. However, our founders didn’t consider an America in which the most popular option was ‘none,’ and yet that’s the water we are now swimming in.

For some, this is concerning. Other Christians are celebrating. After 1700 years, ‘Constantinianism’ has fizzled out. We don’t get to rule anymore — that is, we’re out of the business of policing orthodoxy or making good citizens for our nation-state. This means we get to attend to the work God has called us to rather than having to endorse the foreign wars or market interests of our nation. We’re out of the business of making good citizens, but that also means we need to get out of the business of Kuyper and his coterie.

Kuyper’s thought worked well for a time when the Church was navigating how best to support the state amidst rising secularization, but that battle has been fought and lost. What good news of great joy. We no longer need to support the idea that the state’s interests and the church’s interests are aligned. However, this should also cause us to realize that new times require new thought.

Now that Calvin University, and the Church in America, get to determine our own story, we first need to ensure that we have a story to tell. I’m concerned that when we recite “every square inch” we really mean, ‘we belong in the halls of power too’. ‘We belong in the halls of power too’ is a story that Calvin can certainly choose to recite, but I suspect it will ultimately make us servants of an idolatrous power. There is much better gas to put in the tank.

One place to start might be with John Calvin. For a university named after him, I’m aware of very few classes that spend any time with Calvin. John Calvin also has a good track record with power. While he was building Geneva into the model Reformed city, he begged the Calvinist princes in France not to initiate a war against their Catholic king, a war which they desperately wanted to wage. After Calvin died, these princes got their century of bloodshed, but it is a testament to the strength of Calvin’s witness that he could restrain them for as long as he did.  

An even better thinker to place at the heart of our university might be Karl Barth. Barth, like Kuyper, can be called a Neo-Calvinist. He was trained by liberal German theologians who eventually supported (or were silent about) Hitler’s rise to power and his persecution of the European Jews. His theology afterwards was shaped by that global moment. In response, he provided the main theological underpinning of the Confessing Church, which opposed the Nazi regime and the German Church’s accommodation of it. He was also likely the greatest theologian of the 20th century, regarded by many today as a mind on par with Calvin, Aquinas, and Augustine.

It seems to me that in this historical moment, God is giving the Church in America a great gift. We must attend to that gift and what it demands of us. Stanley Hauerwas says that “God is making the Church in America leaner and meaner.” If we’re going to get lean and mean, we need to seriously evaluate the intellectual foundation of this project we call Calvin University. It’s no small task. I’d be happy to start by finding a new three letter slogan to put above the workout room.