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Images of Intolerance: John Calvin in Nineteenth-Century History Textbooks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Thomas J. Davis
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Extract

The name “John Calvin” and the movement associated with him, Calvinism, serve as rhetorical negatives in the popular language of American culture. In a society often regarded as the most ahistorical in the Western world—an important American proclaimed that “history is bunk”—the name of Calvin, the sixteenth-century Protestant reformer who worked mostly in Geneva, is common enough coinage to show up in a variety of contexts. One can read newspaper stories on baseball, and Calvin is there. Or one can look at a popular book on the drug Prozac and there read about “pharmacological Calvinism.” A moving analysis of the AIDS crisis in the New York Times mentions Calvin. All of the references carry negative connotations of fatalism, guilt, and so on. The word “Calvin” seems to be shorthand for a range of negative thoughts and feelings in the American cultural consciousness.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 234 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1996

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References

I would like to thank the Louisville Institute for the Study of Protestantism in American Culture for a summer stipend grant that enabled me to carry out the research for this paper; the very helpful librarians at both the Education Research Library, Washington, D.C., and the Nietz Old Textbook Collection, University of Pittsburgh; the School of Liberal Arts, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, for time to work on the piece; and my departmental colleagues, especially Conrad Cherry, for their comments.

1. “Is It Calvinism or Realism?” Boston Globe, 14 August 1986 (an article about the pennant chances of the Red Sox);Google ScholarKramer, Peter D., Listening to Prozac (New York, 1993), p. 259; andGoogle Scholar Arthur Caplan, as quoted in Gina Kolata, “The Face that Haunts: On AIDS and Its Victims,” New York Times, 10 July 1994, sec. 4, p. 6. Thanks to my colleague William J.Jackson for looking out for good “Calvin” stuff in newspapers and magazines.

2. Scribner, Sylvia, “Cultures and Textbooks,” in The Textbook in American Society: A Volume Based on a Conference at the Library of Congress on May 2–3, 1979, ed. Cole, John Y. and Sticht, Thomas G. (Washington, D.C., 1981), p. 7.Google Scholar

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6. Ibid., pp. 7, 46–47

7. Nietz, , The Evolution of American Secondary School Textbooks (Rutland, Vt., 1966), p. 236.Google Scholar

8. Parley's First Book of History, Combined with Geography (Boston, Mass., 1832), p. 5.Google Scholar

9. In looking through numerous general history books from the nineteenth century, I found only one positive treatment of Calvin: Robbins, Royal, The World Displayed, in its History and Geography; embracing a History of the World, from the Creation to the Present Day (New York, 1830), p. 222.Google Scholar

10. Calvin is absent not only in the “first” history in the Peter Parley series but also in later works; see Parley's, PeterCommon School History, 9th ed. (Philadelphia, Pa., 1841).Google Scholar

11. Whelpley, Samuel, Compend of History, from the Earliest Times, 10th ed. (Boston, Mass., 1828), is dedicated to the Presbyterian minister Samuel Miller.Google Scholar Another popular history with absolutely no mention of Calvin is Lardner, Dionysius, Outline of Universal History: Embracing a Concise History of the World, from the Earliest Period, to the Present Time, ed. Frost, John (Philadelphia, Pa., 1832).Google Scholar Calvin is merely a name listed in the works of Butler, Frederick, A Catechetical Compend of General History, Sacred and Profane, 4th ed. (Hartford, Conn., 1818), p. 100; andGoogle ScholarSketches of Universal History, Sacred and Profane, 4th ed. (Hartford, Conn., 1822), p. 188.Google Scholar

12. For a survey of attitudes toward Calvin in France, see Pfeilschifter, Frank, Das Calvinbild bei Bolsec und sein Fortwirken im franzöischen Katholizimus bis ins 20. Jahrhundert (Augsburg, Germany, 1983).Google Scholar

13. Woodhouselee, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Elements of General History, Ancient and Modern; to which are added a Table of Chronology and a Comparative View of Ancient and Modern Geography (Philadelphia, Pa., 1809), p. 261.Google Scholar

14. Willard, Emma, Universal History, in Perspective, 10th ed. (New York, 1850), p. 327.Google Scholar On the immense popularity of Willard's work, see Nietz, , Evolution, p. 243.Google Scholar

15. Fisher, George Park, Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-Book and for Private Reading (New York, 1885), p. 412;Google Scholar andWillson, Marcius, Outlines of History Illustrated by Numerous Geographical and Historical Notes and Maps, rev. university ed. (New York, 1873), p. 344.Google Scholar

16. Adams, Herbert Baxter, “Special Methods of Historical Study,” in Methods of Teaching and Studying History, ed. Hall, G. Stanley (Boston, Mass., 1886), p. 143.Google Scholar For the best historical treatment of the notion of objectivity in American historical writing, see Novick, Peter, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession(Cambridge, U.K., 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. West, Willis Mason, The Story of Modern Progress: With a Preliminary Survey of Earlier Progress (Boston, Mass., 1920), p. 148.Google Scholar

18. Fisher, , p. 411.Google Scholar

19. Colby, Frank Moore, Outlines of General History (New York, 1899), p. 364.Google Scholar

20. Lodge, Richard, A History of Modern Europe from the Capture of Constantinople by the Turk, to the Treaty in Berlin, 1878 (New York, 1886), p. 71. Lodge, though an Oxford don, published with an American company and his work was used in American schools.Google Scholar

21. Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 1957-), s.v. “Fiske, John.” Fiske's own ancestors included English Puritans.Google Scholar

22. Fiske, John, The Beginnings of New England; or the Puritan Theocracy in Its Relation to Civil Liberty (Boston, Mass., 1889), pp. 57–59.Google Scholar

23. Elson, , Guardians of Tradition.Google Scholar

24. Walker, Decker F., “Textbooks and the Curriculum,” in The Textbook in American Society, ed. Cole, and Sticht, , p. 3.Google Scholar

25. May, Henry F., The Enlightenment in America (New York, 1976), pp. xi–xxi.Google Scholar

26. Ibid., pp. 305–362; and Noll, Mark A., “The Evangelical Enlightenment and the Task of Theological Education,” in Communication and Change in American Religious History, ed. Sweet, Leonard I. (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1993), p. 278.Google ScholarOn the notion of perfectibility, it is clear in the textbooks that “nothing can hinder [the] march toward material and moral perfection”; Elson, , p. 337.Google Scholar

27. Elson, , pp. 289, 295.Google Scholar

28. Willson, Outlines of History, rev. ed. p. iv; Myers, P. V. N., Outlines of Mediaeval and Modern History (Boston, Mass., 1885), p. iii;Google Scholar and Swinton, William, Outlines of the World's History, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, with Special Relation to the History of Civilization and the Progress of Mankind (New York, 1874), p. iii.Google Scholar

29. Elson, , p. 47.Google Scholar

30. May, , p. xv.Google Scholar

31. Elson, , pp. 43–14.Google Scholar

32. Noll, , “Evangelical Enlightenment,” pp. 270, 273, 289.Google Scholar

33. Mead, Sidney, The Lively Experiment: The Shaping of Christianity in America (New York, 1963), pp. 12–13, 55, 61.Google Scholar

34. Hatch, Nathan O., The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, Conn., 1989), p. 9.Google Scholar

35. Haroutunian, Joseph, Piety versus Moralism: The Passing of the New England Theology (New York, 1932).Google ScholarAlso helpful here is the sketch in Barbara Cross's introduction to Beecher, Lyman, The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, ed. Cross, Barbara (Cambridge, Mass., 1961).Google Scholar

36. See Cross, , “Introduction,” p. xx, where she states: “Aggressive deists announced that ‘priestcraft,’ ‘superstition,’ and the ‘despotic’ Calvinist God were incompatible with true freedom. If few became atheists, increasing numbers suspected that Calvinism was somehow at odds with the basic principle of democracy.” This is not to say that Calvinism simply rolled over and died. In the broader public mind, Calvin and Calvinism were displaced as positive images, but there were also revivals of older Calvinism.Google ScholarSee, for example, Conforti, Joseph, “Mary Lyon, the Founding of Mount Holyoke College, and the Cultural Revival of Jonathan Edwards,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 3 (Winter 1993): 69–89, especially p. 84, where Conforti argues that his case study of Lyon “raises questions about the alleged utter demise of Calvinism in the nineteenth century.” Of course, Conforti is here speaking of a Calvinist “culture,” not Calvinist doctrine.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37. Elson, , pp. 55–59.Google Scholar

38. See Elson, , pp. 186–187, 207.Google Scholar

39. Woodhouselee, , p. 261.Google Scholar

40. See Dickens, A. G. and Tonkin, John M., with Powell, Kenneth, The Reformation in Historical Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), pp. 119–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. Koch, Christophe Guillaume de, History of the Revolutions in Europe from the Subversion of the Roman Empire in the West, to the Congress of Vienna, rev. and corrected by Cogswell, J. G. (Middletown, Conn., 1839), p. 217.Google Scholar

42. Guizot, M., General History of Civilization in Europe, from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution, 8th ed. (New York, 1852), pp. 249, 255; the first edition goes back to the 1830s. The papal bull Exsurge Domine threatened Luther with excommunication if he did not recant.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., p. 267hr n.

44. Willard, p. 316.

45. Butler, Sketches of Universal History, p. 176.

46. Swinton, . p. 320;Google ScholarWeber, George, 0utlines of Universal History, from the Creation of the World to the Present Time, trans. Behr, M., rev. and correctedGoogle Scholar, with the addition of a History of the United Slates by Bowen, Francis, 14th ed. (Boston, Mass., 1853), p. 209;Google Scholar and Myers, p. 372.

47. Willson, Marcius, Outlines of History; Illustrated by Numerous Geographical and Historical Notes and Maps, embracing Part I. Ancient History. Part II. Modern History (New York, 1862), p. 333.Google Scholar

48. For an account of how Luther came to epitomize freedom of thought, see Zeeden, Ernst Walter, The Legacy of Luther: Martin Luther and the Reformation in the Estimation of the German Lutherans from Luther's Death to the Beginning of the Age of Goethe, trans. Bethell, Ruth Mary (Westminster, Md., 1954), pp. xi–xiii, 139.Google Scholar

49. Elson, , pp. 47–48.Google Scholar For Elson's general treatment of Catholicism in the textbooks, see especially pp. 47–55. Elson points out that the only favorable views of Catholicism appeared in books designed for use in Catholic parochial schools (p. 52).

50. Myers, P. V. N., A General History for Colleges and High Schools (Boston, Mass., 1889), p. 526.Google Scholar

51. Fiske, , p. 59.Google Scholar

52. This image of Calvin persists even today. Heiko Oberman, in a remarkable passage, spells out how this rendition of Calvin affects how both Calvin and his work are viewed and misunderstood: “Reformation scholarship has not felt the need to be polite to Calvin—to a large extent, I am convinced, because Calvin admirers and neo—Calvinists have allowed him to be reduced to the man who believed that you are either saved or damned. The price to be paid is not only the caricature of a man and his message, but the fundamental misunderstanding of his age and our day: the fast food of the neo-Calvinist Geneva-burger could not have met the needs of the time or provide for the survival power until our own day”; Oberman, , “John Calvin: The Mystery of His Impact,” in Calvin Studies VI, ed. Leith, John (Davidson, N.C., 1992), p. 9. Part of Oberman's point is that Calvin had to be more sociable, personable, and likable than common stereotypes allow, or else he would have had much less impact in his own day.Google Scholar

53. For an example of how this takes place within a community that is heir to Calvin, see the series “The Presbyterian Presence: The Twentieth-Century Experience.” The titles themselves are enlightening: The Confessional Mosaic and The Pluralistic Vision, for example. In the introduction to The Confessional Mosaic, the editors discuss how the “blessings … of Presbyterian toleration and individual freedom” are valued by some within the denomination;Google ScholarCoalter, Milton J., Mulder, John M., and Weeks, Louis B., eds., The Confessional Mosaic: Presbyterians and Twentieth Century Theology (Louisville, Ky., 1990), p. 21. Of course, such a point of view leads to difficulty when it comes to hammering out doctrinal statements of any real specificity; indeed, the newest creed of the Presbyterians “contained generalities in which everyone could feel at home”;Google ScholarMoorhead, James H., “Redefining Confessionalism: American Presbyterians in the Twentieth Century,” in Coalter, et al., p. 81. The turn away from communal to individual standards for confession is prominent in devotional literature, which is filled with a “new language of self-expression”;Google ScholarNoll, Mark A. and Hart, Darryl G., “The Language of Zion: Presbyterian Devotional Literature in the Twentieth Century,” in Coalter, et al., p. 207. Without arguing the pros and cons of the situation, these quotations underline the fact that what is important for many heirs of Calvin is not doctrinal content but a mood of freedom and autonomy in religious affairs, and it is that mood rather than traditional Calvinist doctrine that characterizes many Presbyterians.Google Scholar

54. Elson, , pp. 339, 341.Google Scholar

55. See Hatch, , p. 10.Google Scholar

56. See Fiske, The Beginnings of New England. Just as with Calvin, Puritan stereotypes continue well into the twentieth century despite scholarship that puts both into a more appropriate historical context. For just one example among many, the impact and continuing influence of Arthur Miller's use of the Puritans in The Crucible is representative of twentieth-century symbolic uses.Google Scholar