Editor’s note: One of the enduring issues of the past few years for the Calvin community at large has been clarifying the university’s relationship with the Christian Reformed Church in North America, Calvin’s parent denomination. Recent decisions about the denominational stance on sexuality have led to renewed conversations about a balance between academic freedom and confessional commitments at Calvin. Today, according to the Calvin website, the university has been partnered with the CRCNA for 149 years. According to the Calvin website, “as the university of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), Calvin holds to the position of the CRC on human sexuality, articulated in 1973, 2002, and 2021. That is to say, while affirming that physical sexual intimacy has its proper place in the context of heterosexual marriage, [the university] believe[s] that homosexual orientation is not a sin, and we strive to love our gay, lesbian and bisexual students as ourselves, as God expects of us.” This is an opinion piece.

Nicholas Wolterstorff, considered one of the most prominent Christian philosophers of the 20th century, is the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University. A graduate of Calvin College, he later returned to teach philosophy for 30 years at the institution. Guest writer Jonathan David Barrantes Segovia sat down with Wolterstorff for a conversation on Oct. 16.

Jonathan: Having been a student, a faculty member, and now an outside observer, how would you describe the historical relationship between Calvin University and the CRC during your time here?

Wolterstorff: Calvin historically came out of the neo-Calvinist movement, founded especially by Abraham Kuyper. That’s been its orientation. And the same was true of the Christian Reformed Church — both the CRC and Calvin College. The CRC never saw itself [at the time] as part of American evangelicalism. There was — and maybe still is — the National Association of Evangelicals. The CRC never joined [during that time]; it saw itself as something distinct on the American scene. Furthermore, when it conducted its discussions at Synod, they were very different from many church assemblies. The CRC was willing to live with disagreements for a long time over divorce. That took many years. And women’s ordination must have been discussed for 10 years. Neither side tried to shut the other down. The eventual resolution was [the] local option. 

About 20 years ago, it seemed to me that something shifted. The CRC became part of what you call fundamentalism, what is known as white North American evangelicalism. It lost its neo-Calvinist memory and just became a small part of that. An aspect of this was that the way it conducted synodical discussions changed profoundly. So that, fifteen years ago by now — maybe twelve — when it appointed a committee to study the issue of same-sex marriage, it stipulated that only those who held a conservative position could be on the committee. Nothing like that happened with women’s ordination; they never said only people for or against could serve. So it simply stifled discussion. There has never been a serious, open discussion in the CRC about same-sex marriage. So something happened — call it 20 years ago, 15 years ago. As I say, the memory of its neo-Calvinist origins and debate practices disappeared. It became just part of American evangelicalism and adopted current strategies of closing down debate — not even listening to the other side. It’s a tragedy. So we’ve got this tragedy on our hands, and what do we do? 

Let me add one more thing. A key part of the neo-Calvinist tradition — using Kuyper’s own phrase — is sphere sovereignty. He thought there are different social spheres: academy, business, education, church, state, and so forth. Each ought to have its own autonomy and norms; businesses shouldn’t run educational institutions, and the state shouldn’t either. So he founded the Free University of Amsterdam — free from state control but also free from church control. For various reasons, Calvin began under church control. [I’ve been told] that even at the very beginning there were people who protested this. It continued mainly for pragmatic reasons. By contrast, the colleges that share the same origins — Dordt in Sioux Center, Redeemer in Canada, The King’s University in Canada — are all separate from church control. Calvin has been an anomaly within this tradition. 

Jonathan: What made Calvin distinctive in the years that you and Plantinga were here? Do you believe that anything has changed?

Wolterstorff: As I read the history — up to the 1960s, perhaps — Calvin and its professors saw themselves mainly as serving the CRC. Then in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, I and Plantinga, Marsden and Howard Green did a lot; we were instrumental in opening it up. Here’s an example: I think my philosophy professors at Calvin, Jellema and Stob, never attended the American Philosophical Association meetings. They basically had nothing to do with the wider philosophical world. It was “our school.” We, by contrast, began attending larger meetings, and — as we mentioned earlier — helped found the Society of Christian Philosophers. So in the ’60s and ’70s there was an opening, and I was blessed to be part of it. That became the legacy you know as Calvin College. Now I fear that legacy is under threat of being destroyed [by] becoming conservative evangelical fundamentalism. I find the new regulations, such as they are, quite ambiguous and hazy. But my understanding is that I would not be allowed to teach at the present Calvin College — that’s my understanding.

Jonathan: One of your most recognized contributions has been equipping Christian philosophy with intellectual tools to engage secular culture — beyond fundamentalism. How is that mission being challenged today by the new confessional framework at Calvin and within the CRC?

Wolterstorff: It’s being challenged — threatened — by imposing doctrinal conformity across a range of issues, especially same-sex marriage. The result is that gifted Christian philosophers — orthodox Christians — will be excluded — they won’t be able to teach here, including myself if I were younger. That’s why it’s threatened. And look, I think I can safely say that it was Calvin in the 1970s — the philosophy department, but also history and English — that led in founding the Society of Christian Philosophers. Philosophers at Wheaton and Notre Dame also, but we were the leaders. Its offices have always been here at Calvin. So we’ve been the leaders. If now you exclude the very people who led the movement, that’s a profound change.

Jonathan: What does academic freedom mean to you? What do you think will happen to scholarship if we continue down this path?

Wolterstorff: For me, Calvin represented one tradition within Christianity — the Reformed Protestant tradition, which began in the Swiss Reformation and spread to the Netherlands, England, Scotland, Poland, Hungary, and so on. Calvin’s traditional way of acknowledging that tradition was to have us sign the Three Forms of Unity; it was also understood that we accepted the three ancient creeds. Synod didn’t try to impose conservative or liberal interpretations of these confessions; it allowed us to understand them. That’s how it operated. These were understood as a way of standing within the tradition. And in Calvin’s case, it wasn’t just the Reformed tradition, but the neo-Calvinist expression of it. That worked well. So what was the problem? What is the problem? What do they expect to be the outcome? Do they realize they are on a path to destroying Calvin College — turning it into a little tiny fundamentalist school? Do they realize that? It seems it’s been taken over by fundamentalists. If they took the big-picture view, what difference does this issue make to that big picture? What difference did it make in the past that I held a different view? None whatsoever. It’s the fundamentalist drive — and [it includes] sort of ignoring the consequences.

Jonathan: If faculty members are feeling fear or inhibition about what they can say or research, how might that affect Calvin’s academic culture, its ability to attract scholars and its moral authority as a Reformed institution?

Wolterstorff: This is bound to affect morale. I don’t talk to many faculty members, but my guess is that morale is already affected. As for prospective faculty members, unless they are extremely conservative on this issue, they’ll say, “Why would I want to get involved? I honor Calvin’s traditional philosophers and so forth, but with these new reports, I don’t want to get involved.” It seems to me it will be extremely difficult to recruit new faculty other than arch-conservatives on this particular issue. The reputation of Calvin will go down. What else could happen? Its standing as a progressive leader will disappear. It will take time — it won’t happen immediately — but that’s what will happen, sad to say, and it’s painful.

Jonathan: If someone wanted to rebuild the kind of Christian philosophical legacy that you and others established at Calvin, what institutional or cultural steps would be needed to restore trust and intellectual freedom?

Wolterstorff: I think what should happen is that Calvin disaffiliates itself from the denomination, that it acquires the same status as Dordt, Redeemer, King’s, and so forth. That can still have some sort of connection as those do, but they’re not controlled by the denomination. As long as it’s controlled and the denomination is in the hands of fundamentalists, it’s going to decline. So I think it should disaffiliate. My understanding is that the board disagrees with that, and my guess is that the board thinks that to disaffiliate would be financially ruinous. [I believe] that for most colleges and even universities, their major donors are conservatives and not progressives. I once talked to somebody at the University of Michigan who is in the financial department, and he said that two-thirds of their gifts come from conservatives. So that’s not just true of Christian colleges, it’s true of lots of universities as well. So my guess is that the board is worried about financial stability, but Redeemer survives and King’s survives — Calvin would, too.

Jonathan: From your perspective, what is the value to the church of having scholars who wrestle with difficult theological and moral questions — scholars who may, through honest study and faith, reach a variety of conclusions? 

Wolterstorff: What has been valuable about Calvin over the years is that it represents a particular Christian tradition — the Reformed tradition — and specifically the neo-Calvinist version has been distinctive. That has led to its understanding of faith and learning and has guided other colleges in that area. It’s important to keep that tradition. But of course, in any tradition, almost any member will disagree with some parts. There should always be a system in which a faculty member can say, “I disagree with this part,” and a representative committee can judge how serious that is. If someone says, “I don’t believe in the incarnation,” then they’ve pretty clearly excluded themselves. But if they say, “I have a different view of same-sex marriage,” that lies very low on the spectrum of Christian distinctives. Standing in this tradition has meant that Calvin has not been just a generic Christian college, which there are a lot around the country. It’s been distinctive. But it’s been generous in its distinctiveness historically. And that’s what is under threat. What should happen is what used to happen in the CRC: a lengthy and open discussion of the issue, without one side trying to shut down the other. That’s what’s different now. We need an open, generous discussion.

Note: In this article, specific references to “conservative” ideology are made. This idea of conservatism derives from theological differences, and may not map directly onto American political ideologies.