"Clark H. Pinnock is one of theworld’s best-known and most creative
and controversial
theologians… Since the 1970s Pinnock has pioneered a now widespread
school of Christian thought called “open” or “free-will” theism."
—Barry Callen, Clark
H. Pinnock: Journey Toward Renewal (2000)
"Some very close and significant relationships with
individual faculty members developed, most notably with Clark Pinnock,
a
professor of theology. Clark was at once a teacher, a brother, and a
friend. He is a man of deep personal integrity, exceptional
intellectual capacity, and a
genuine Christian conscience. He was an early supporter and counselor
for our
efforts at Trinity and stood by us in
the controversy, even at risk to his own position at the seminary."
—Jim Wallis, Revive Us
Again: A Sojourner’sStory (1983)
"Evangelicals have been reading the Sermon on the Mount for centuries
with little evident intention of taking the text seriously."
—Clark Pinnock, Revolution
(1971)
"The thing that keeps coming back to me is, what is Christianity, and, indeed, what is Christ, for us today?"
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
There is little doubt that Clark Pinnock is one of the more
interesting and challenging theologians within the Evangelical tribe in Canada
and North America; he is very much a needful and necessary sliver in the clan.
Pinnock has raised the dander of the Evangelical Sanhedrin with his trinity of
the ‘Wideness of God’s Grace’, “Open Theism” and the dominance of Calvinism in
the Evangelical world and ethos. The ongoing dustup around these issues has
kept Pinnock on the theological hot seat for the two decades.
All the sound and fury in this area has tended to obscure
Pinnock’s rather erratic political journey. Roennfeldt’s Clark H. Pinnock on Biblical Authority: An Evolving Position (1993),
Erickson’s The Evangelical Left:
Encountering Postconservative Evangelical Theology (1997), Dorrien’s The Remaking of Evangelical Theology (1998),Callen’s
Clark Pinnock: Journey Toward Renewal (2000),
and Stanley Grenz’s extended article on Pinnock in Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era: Renewing the Center
(2000), do little, in any serious or substantive way, to discuss Pinnock’s
political theology. John Stackhouse’s Canadian
Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century: An Introduction to its Character
(1993) hardly touches on Pinnock, but when he does lightly land, the political
theology of Pinnock is mostly ignored. This is a serious lack and failing, in
all these authors, in an approach to the Canadian evangelical tradition, a way
into the life and writings of Pinnock and how theology should be done. There is
a need to track and trace the maze of Pinnock’s political theology (in more
than a pietistic way), and this short essay will hike in such a direction.
Prophetic theology asks of us that we transcend both the inward devotional and
pietistic way and the lure and temptation of an ideological political theology
of the left, right or sensible centre.
Clark Pinnock was best known in the 1960s as an up and
coming Christian apologist. Books poured off the press as water cascades over
rocks in this area. The age of retreat was over. Christians could and would
enter the public realm and defend their case and way in an intelligent and
articulate manner. Pinnock, in the 1960s, did much, drawing from the
inspiration of Francis Schaeffer, F.F. Bruce and C.S. Lewis to offer a solid
case for the Christian perspective and worldview. The tensions, though, between
Schaeffer,
Bruce and Lewis (and their different understandings of the
authority/interpretation of the Bible and Calvinism/Arminianism) would take
Pinnock to many unexpected places on the theological map.
The 1960s, though, was a time of much social and political
upheaval and unrest. The talk of revolution was all about. The Blacks were
demanding their rights, many young and idealistic Americans were saying a firm
and defiant No to the Vietnam War. Many trekked north to Canada to flee from
the draft. It did not take a keen eye to sense something was not right. Pinnock
heard the heartbeat of the youth and the victims of oppression, and as a young
theologian, he knew had had to do more than dwell in the safe and secure world
of Christian apologetics. He had, in short, to enter the fray. Surely the Bible
was about being concerned for justice and peacemaking. The Jewish prophets and
the Sermon and the Mount could not be ignored by those who took the authority
of the Bible seriously. The question of course was this: how was the Bible to
be interpreted and applied in an economic, social and political sense for the
1960s and 1970s?
Pinnock had taught New Testament Studies and Theology at New
Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisiana from 1965-1969. He was, at
the time, a committed Baptist, and a convinced Calvinist with a strong
propositional approach to Biblical inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility. He
defended such a position with much force against the corrosive nature of
assimilationist liberalism. But, things were about to change. The debates about
Biblical inspiration, inerrancy, infallibility, apologetics and Calvinism that
Pinnock was front and centre in were about to shift with a change in teaching
location. Pinnock moved to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1969, and he
taught there from 1969-1974. It was at Trinity that Pinnock met Jim Wallis.
Wallis arrived at Trinity in the autumn of 1970, and he had more things on his
mind than merely Christian apologetics and defence of Calvinism and Biblical
infallibility. Wallis wanted to know, in the most demanding terms, the social,
economic and political implications of the Bible. It was just a matter of time
before Wallis and Pinnock would meet, and Wallis did much to politicize
Pinnock.
There were few Evangelicals in the USA that dared to
question the alliance of God and the Republican Party. God was, for many, a
republican. Or, the Republican Party best embodied and incarnated God. Jim
Wallis (and the Sojourners community) was one of the few Evangelical groups who
begged to differ. Wallis recounts and records this tale well in Revive Us Again: A Sojourner’s Story (1983).
Clark Pinnock felt the struggles of the young to make sense of the tensions
between faith and justice/peacemaking, and he became quite involved with Wallis
and the early Sojourners community.
The Post-American
was a magazine launched by Wallis and others in 1971 to confront the way
American Evangelicals had been co-opted by the American empire. Pinnock has an
article in the earliest edition of The
Post-American (1971) that highlights his turn to political theology. The Post-American was the initial
flagship magazine for the Sojourners community, and Wallis, true to form, was
one of its editors. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School was very much being
challenged and confronted with a new way of interpreting and making sense of
the Bible. The combination of Pinnock and Wallis took the institution by
surprise, and many was the conflict and heated moment on campus.
Pinnock’s article, “Revolution”, pulls no punches. The
missive is crisply divided into thesis one, two, three, four. Each thesis is
clearly stated, then expanded upon in a commentary.
Thesis One: The Christian faith has revolutionary
implications for human life and society.
Thesis Two: Institutional Christianity in America has
allowed itself to become a defender of the status quo and a counter
revolutionary force.
Thesis Three: The contemporary revolutionary student
movements represent a secular response to very legitimate moral concerns, but
have some weaknesses.
Thesis Four: The Christian faith supplies an entirely
convincing rationale for revolutionary change.
Thesis Four then discusses revolutionary values and the
modus operandi of such values.
There is little doubt that “Revolution” in The Post-American is thick with
excessive and extreme generalizations, but Pinnock’s commitment and passion is
there for one and all to see. He is quick to identify with the students and
their revolutionary concerns, but he thinks there should be some reason for
caution, also. Pinnock argues that it is the Christian who has the real reason
for genuine revolution, but the irony is this. It is the secular political
activists that seem to be living the gospel in the political sense, and it is
the Christians who are the most tame. Pinnock, in “Revolution”, calls into
question a lack of depth in the secular activists, goes after apathetic and
pietistic Christians, and attempts to use the Bible to demonstrate why
Christians should be in the vanguard of the political struggle. The year, then,
was 1971, and Pinnock was very much doing political theology. He was teaching
in the USA at the time, those he was working with were students, so his focus
in “Revolution” was on students.
Clark Pinnock moved back to Canada in 1974, and he taught at
Regent College in Vancouver, BC, from 1974-1977. Pinnock brought with him his
political theology to this young Evangelical College (begun in 1969). Pinnock
was very much the wildcard at Regent from 1974-77. He urged, he pleaded, he
nudged and he insisted that theology and Biblical exegesis must be political,
and it must be political in a thoughtful and probing way. Theology must be more
than an opiate, and theologians must be more than apologists for the political
status quo. Many students at Regent were drawn to Pinnock while others doubted
him. Many of the faculty such as Ward Gasque (a keener for the Fraser
Insitute), Carl Armerding (a good American military man) , Jim Houston (more
pietist and anarchist) and later Klaus Bockmeuhl (ever fretting and stewing about
the Lausanne Covenant of 1974) were not quite sure what to do with Pinnock.
There was no doubt, though, that Pinnock and Wallis were demanding their due.
The time was over when Evangelicals could either retreat into an a-political
and pietistic caccoon or be cheerleaders for the American Republican party, the
American military and American imperialism. Protest and radical politics was
all about, and Pinnock had become a leader in the Evangelical wing of the
revolutionary movement.
Two books were published in 1970 that signaled, for the
alert and alive, that something of worth and note was happening in the broader
Christian world and ethos. The New Left
and Christian Radicalism (Arthur Gish) and The Radical Kingdom: The Western Experience of Messianic Hope (Rosemary
Radford Ruether) both argued that there is a radical political tradition within
the Christian Tradition, and they urged one and all to reclaim and recover such
a protest, communitarian and anarchist way. Both used arguments from history to
point the way to a more revolutionary and radical way of thinking and living
the Christian journey. These books both reflected what was happening in the
1960s, and pointed the way into the 1970s. This was also a period of time in
which Evangelicalism and Social
Responsibility (1969), by Vernon Grounds, and probably more important for
self styled radicals and Christian anarchists, John Howard Yoder’s, The Original Revolution (1971) and The Politics of Jesus (1972) was
published.
It is important to note that in 1974 the International
Congress on World Evangelization was held in Lausanne. The issue of social
ethics was front and centre. Evangelicals had come of political age. The
leadership could no more be silent on substantive political and economic
questions. Pinnock was very much a part of this deepening of the Evangelical
social conscience. This was also a time when Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship
(IVCF) in Canada was becoming more political. Samuel Escobar (a leading
Evangelical liberation theologian and activist from Argentina) became the
General Director of IVCF in Canada from 1972-1975. He replaced Wilber
Sutherland who had been General Director for almost 25 years, and Sutherland
was also committed to move IVCF in a more politically and artistically engaged
direction. Sutherland went on to form Imago,
a Christian organization in Canada that pushed many Evangelicals to a deeper
understanding of faith, politics, the arts and the environment. Pinnock has
called IVCF “my real ecclesial home” (Callen:p.4), so a combination of teaching
at Trinity, working with Jim Wallis, the Lausanne Conference of 1974 and a more
politicized IVCF in the late 1960s and 1970s did much to alter Pinnock’s
approach to Biblical exegesis and ways to do theology.
There is no doubt that The
Post-American and Sojourners
magazine (Sojourners became the new
name for The Post-American when the
community moved to inner city Washington DC) represented the more radical and
anarchist left of the Evangelical tradition in the USA. Wallis and clan went
much further than the Baptist tradition at Eastern College of Ron Sider and
Tony Campolo.
There were other Evangelical magazines that were more
moderate and positioned in the safe and sensible centre: Christianity Today was such a magazine. Christianity Today embodied a sort of middle of the road
Inter-Varsity ethos and mentality, but even Christianity
Today became caught up in the fray. Pinnock was, as I mentioned above, at
Regent College from 1974-1977. Regent and Christianity
Today are very much at home with one another; they tend to fit hand and
glove.
Pinnock had an article published in Christianity Today in 1976: “Liberation Theology: The Gains, The
Gaps”. The article is on Latin American liberation theology. Pinnock turns his eye south from Canada, through the USA,
sees straight into the struggles against injustice in Latin American. He makes
it clear that liberation theology is stating something that needs to be stated.
Men like Gutierrez, Segundo, Alves, Castro and Bonino are held high as thinkers
and theologians who are trying to make sense of their faith in brutal places.
Theology cannot flit and fly in the clouds and on mountaintops when in the
valley many are dying of starvation and political oppression. And, to connect
the dots, the USA and the power brokers in Latin American had much in common in
the brutalizing of the poor in Latin America. Pinnock makes it quite clear in
“Liberation Theology: The Gains, The Gaps”, that he has a great deal of
affinity with the concerns of the theologians in Latin America. This did not
mean, though, he was not going to ask critical questions about they way they
interpreted the Bible and did their theology.
Just as “Revolution” was about heeding and hearing the
students cry for justice and peace, yet daring to ask critical questions of
their short sightedness, “Liberation Theology: The Gains, The Gaps” leans
towards the heart cry of the Latin American liberation theologians but does
raise some questions about them. Pinnock suggests that Latin American theologians
are weak in four areas: 1) the interpretation of scripture, 2) the meaning of
salvation, 3) the nature of man, and 4) the mission of the church. Pinnock was,
at this point in his journey, seeking to heal a sad and tragic divide and
division in
Western Christendom. Evangelicals had tended to be either
a-political or supporters of the American dream while claiming to be true to
the Bible as their source of authority and inspiration. Liberals and liberation
theologians (even though these groups collided) had a tendency to be faithful
to the justice and peacemaking tradition of the Bible while indulging in
higher-lower criticism and interpreting justice and peace through liberal and
Marxist lens. Pinnock, to his credit, attempted to mend this fence and heal the
hurts. “Liberation Theology: The Gains, The Gaps” is a fine missive in such a
thoughtful genre. Pinnock is willing to raise hard questions about both the
Evangelical tribe and the Liberal and Liberationist clan. Needless to say, he
found himself in a precarious place.
Both “Revolution” (1971) and “Liberation Theology: The
Gains, The Gaps” (1976) follow a similar line of reasoning. Those outside the
Evangelical tribe (students and liberation theologians) are saying much good,
but there are worrisome aspects about their position. Evangelicals are saying
much good, but there is much blindness in them. Is it possible, therefore, to
thread together the best of both traditions while negating the many weak chinks
in the chain and armour of both clans and tribes? This seems to be Pinnock’s
hope and dream at the time.
It is interesting to note that Pinnock was teaching in
Canada at this time, but there is no mention of Canada, Canadian politics or
Canadian theology. We might ask, why? Why are American revolutionary students
and Latin American liberation theologians the place he turns to for his
insights and inspiration? Is this not the mark of a comprador and colonial
theologian? Clark Pinnock was born in Canada, he spent most of his early and
formative years in Canada, did his Ph.D. in England and taught for a few years
in the USA. But, there is no mention of Canada and Canadian political theology
in his thinking. Why is this the case? There have certainly been plenty of
Canadian political theologians, and such theologians (some even Baptist) have
done much to work for justice and peace and support different political parties
(CCF-NDP, Liberal, Progressive Conservative, Social Credit-Reform-Alliance).
Tommy Douglas and George Rawlyk stood in a Canadian Baptist line and lineage
that Pinnock could have heard and heeded, but there is no real serious
discussion of such men. Pinnock did vote for the Communist party in the 1974
Vancouver municipal election. We could ask, why? Douglas and Rawlyk certainly
pointed in a more responsible social democratic way and much more rooted and
grounded in the Canadian soft left tradition
The Evangelical Society of Canada sponsored a conference in
1976 that dealt with “The Theology of Liberation”. Pinnock was, yet once again,
nudging and calling the Evangelical family to be committed a political vision
of the Kingdom. The book published from the conference was called, Evangelicals and Liberation (1977), and Pinnock’s article, “A Call for the
Liberation of North American Christians”, is by far, the most demanding.
Pinnock pulls no punches in this article. He probes how Christian in North
American seem to be free, but they are imprisoned by wealth and deaf and
insensitive to suffering and poverty in most parts of the world. A theology
that either retreats from such issue or genuflects to the American empire is
highly problematic and a form of Neo-Constantinianism. “A Call for the
Liberation of North American Christians” is Pinnock at his most feisty, honest
and animated. But, there is still the nagging question: what are the means,
beyond moral outrage, that justice and peace can be embodied? Is it only
through decentralized, anarchist and protest communitarian groups? Pinnock
tends to be weak on the means, and strong on the moral outrage. And again,
Canada is rarely consulted or dealt with even though Pinnock was teaching in
Canada at the time. It is true that he did vote for the Communist Party while
in Canada in the 1970s, but such an attitude to doing politics is rather reactive
and sadly out of touch with serious ways of doing politics both in Canada and
the USA. But, it is this turn to either the anarchist left or the Communist
Party that does tell us something about Pinnock’s way of interpreting and doing
political theology in the 1970s (and why he will, in time, react to it and go
in the opposite direction).
Jim Wallis and the Sojourners community and magazine, by the
mid-1970s, had become a flagship and alternate way of understanding how to
interpret the Bible and apply it for Evangelicals in North America. Clark
Pinnock was still committed to such an approach, and in 1977, he went after his
old mentor and teacher (Francis Schaeffer). “Schaefferism as a Worldview” (Sojourners: July 1977) tells its own
convincing tale. Pinnock, while acknowledging that Schaeffer has done much
good, points out that there are many political and intellectual problems in
Schaeffer’s approach and worldview. This would have taken some courage to say
such things. Schaeffer was at the peak of his powers in the 1970s, and Pinnock
dared to question one of the reigning Calvinist monarchs. We can see a common
theme in Pinnock in this article. He turns to the Anabaptist way of doing
politics that is more protest and communitarian. Schaeffer’s seeming theocracy
is something Pinnock is wary of, although the L’Abri community was something he
admired. L’Abri was, of course, independent of the state, and the approach
emphasized the role of community and society over and against the state.
Schaeffer is taken to task for his right of centre leanings. Pinnock had left
Regent College by the time this article was printed, and he was at McMaster
Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario.
It is important to note at this juncture that when Pinnock
joined McMaster Divinity College in 1977, he was just across the street from
one of the most important Canadian High Tory political theologians. Grant Grant
had help found and develop the Religious Studies at McMaster University in the
early 1960s, and he taught at McMaster until the early 1980s. George Grant is,
of course, much better known in Canada than Clark Pinnock, but Pinnock did have
the opportunity to engage Grant in a serious and substantive theological and
political way, but he never did. Grant was, as a High Tory, neither taken in by the anarchist left
(although many in the New Left in Canada were drawn to him), and he was
certainly no fan of the republicanism of Thatcher, Reagan and Mulroney. It is
this failure of Pinnock to seriously grapple with someone like George Grant
that speaks much about a way of doing political theology in Canada. Pinnock
rarely turned to important Canadian political theologians, and this is a
serious fault and failing in his thinking. It rendered him quite impotent
within his living social and political context. Pinnock is seen as
conservative, but his brand of conservatism is much more the American
republican brand of conservatism than Canadian High Tory conservatism. Pinnock,
in short, played an important role in uncritically importing American political
theology into Canada, and, in this sense, he is very much a colonial and
comprador theologian. It is also a sad fact that Pinnock really has no training
in political theory or political philosophy, and this might contribute to his
problem when he does political theology. This is, of course, a serious problem
with many theologians. Their meager and scant background in substantive
political thought renders them somewhat suspect when they move into areas they
know little about.
Changes were afoot, though, and Pinnock was to change with
the shifts in the political mood and times. Reagan and Thatcher were about to
mount the thrones in the USA and England, and within a few years, Mulroney
would do the same in Canada. Would Pinnock still vote for the Communist Party,
and would the anarchist left of the Anabaptists, Wallis and Sojourners still
hold him? The answer to this, of course, is No.
Just as Pinnock had been converted from a pietistic form of
faith in the 1960s to an anarchist left form of faith in the 1970s, the late
1970s and 1980s, would see Pinnock shift from the anarchist left to the
republican right. This shift is well told in “A Pilgrimage in Political
Theology”. The article was published in Liberation
Theology (1984). All of the writers in this book are very much of an
American republican persuasion: Harold Brown, Michael Novak, Ronald Nash, James
Schall, Edward Norman, Robert Walton, Carl Henry, Dale Vree, Richard John
Neuhaus and Clark Pinnock). The line and lineage cannot be missed. Pinnnock has
turned away from his anarchist left days, and he tells the tale well in “A
Pilgrimage in Political Theology”. This article is a most important read in
understanding the nature of Pinnock’s decisions and rethinking of such
decisions.
“A Pilgrimage in Political Theology: A Personal Witness” is
divided into five sections: 1) An Introduction, 2) Phase One: In the
Mainstream, 1953-1969, 3) Phase Two: Out on the Edges, 1970-1978, 4) Phase
Three: Return to the Center, 1978-1984 and 5) Conclusion. The section titles
speak for themselves. Pinnock from 1953-1969 very much interpreted and
understood the faith journey in an a-political manner. In short pietism was his
interpretive and hermeneutical method of understanding the gospel. This was,
for the most part, at the time, the mainstream way of thinking and living the
faith. The meeting with Wallis, the rise of Liberation Theology, Anabaptist
protest politics, and an emerging Evangelical social conscience took Pinnock to
the edges from 1970-1978. But, Pinnock
came to doubt and question the anarchist left way of interpreting the
faith just as the republican tradition was in the ascendant. This took Pinnock
to what he calls ‘the center”.
The center in this definition means American republicanism.
Fundamentalism and various forms of populist evangelicalism are on the right,
and protest and anarchist politics was seen to be on the edges, on the left.
The sophisticated republican center, therefore, was defined
as the middle way between the anarchist left and the worrisome and often
belligerent fundamentalist right. Are these the only options, though? And, in a
more accurate political sense, is it not appropriate to place republicanism on
the political right? In Canada, such a tradition can hardly been seen as centrist.
But, to argue that American republicanism walked the middle path and dwelt in
the political centre between the anarchist left/social
democrats/socialists-communists on the left (and these groups were often lumped
together) and the populist evangelical and fundamentalist forms of faith on the
political right ( Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, David Mainse-100 Huntley
Street) was very much a trend and tendency. We see this same tendency in Craig
Gay’s book, With Liberty and Justice for
Whom: The Recent Evangelical Debate over Capitalism (1991). Gay had done
his Ph.D with Peter Berger who was an important actor in defining American
republicanism as the political centre. Canadians would certainly raise their
eyebrows about this classification, but the fact Pinnock saw things this way
speaks much about the way his understanding of politics had been co-opted by
the American context and American language.
‘A Pilgrimage in Political Theology’ did much to outline and
highlight the nature, drift and direction of Pinnock’s political journey, but
more was needed. ‘A Pilgrimage’ is good as a primer, but a more demanding
synthesis was needed. Pinnock was, as ever, up to the task. The publication of The Untapped Power of Sheer Christianity: A
Timely Manifesto Aimed At Comprehensive Renewal (1985) did such a deed
well. Pinnock dedicated this tract for the times to ‘all the men and women in
Canada who struggle for reformation and renewal in the churches of our land’
and ‘in loving memory of Francis A. Schaeffer who was valiant for the truth
throughout a long and fruitful life’. Pinnock was much warmer to Schaeffer
again at this period of time. He had turned from his more critical phase as
reflected in “Schaefferism as a Worldview” (1977) to a more appreciative
approach yet again.
The Untapped Power of
Sheer Christianity argues that the church is in a desperate need of renewal
and reformation, and Pinnock argues there are three principles that need to be
heeded if this renewal and reformation is ever going to take place. First,
Christians need to be grounded in the Bible and love the truth of it. Second,
the Bible points the way to life in the Holy Spirit, hence a walking in the
Spirit is needful and necessary. Pinnock is doing his best, at this point, to
hold together two traditions within the Evangelical clan that are often
opposed: those committed to the rational and propositional truths of the Bible
(and often the creeds and confessions that emerge from such a perspective) and
those committed to the charismatic movement and the experiences of life in the
Spirit.
Pinnock is very much a synthesizer at this point. Third, and
here we see Pinnock bringing more together in his comprehensive vision for
renewal, the turn to the public and political sphere is essential. This is what
Pinnock calls obeying the Lord. There is an ‘Appendix’ in this missive called
‘Evangelical Theology: Conservative and Contemporary’ that argues that the
Evangelical tradition, at its best and brightest, is both conservative and
contemporary. We might question Pinnock’s use of conservative (it’s most
republican and American—would George Grant interpret conservatism in this
way?), but let’s move on to the more important point in the ‘Obeying the Lord’
section.
Pinnock makes it quite clear in his political section where
he tips his hat. He thinks the American republican way is the best means to
interpret faith in the economic, political and social spheres. The USA has been
the great and good bastion against the horrors of communism and socialism, and
the market system (although not perfect) is the best we have. Those Pinnock
quotes and those he opposes tell us much about where he plants his political
flag. He says of Michael Novak that ‘I agree entirely with the direction of
thought in Michael Novak The Spirit of
Democratic Capitalism. Novak made a similar shift in his thought from
left-wing utopianism to democratic realism that I too have experienced’
(p.105). The American roll call of the republican right is trotted out in
footnote after footnote ( Rushdoony, Lefever, Novak, Revel, Johnson, Bauer,
Friedman, Nash, Block-the Canadian Fraser Insitute, Langan, Finn, Neuhaus,
Montgomery and, of course, Francis and Franky Schaeffer). The target in this
section was the Canadian Catholic Bishops book, Ethics and Economics: Canada’s Catholic Bishops on the Economic Crises (1984).
Gregory Baum and Duncan Cameron were key players in this position, and the real
debate was about what form of faith is the best in the public and political
sphere: social democracy or republicanism? Pinnock argues that the Canadian
social democratic tradition was flawed and problematic and the American
republican way was the better means of doing political theology.
The Untapped Power of
Sheer Christianity, therefore, argues that renewal and reformation must be
both true to the Truth of the Bible, open to the power and life giving
qualities of the Holy Spirit and, most importantly for political theology,
fully republican, capitalist and pro-American in political sympathies. This is
an interesting trinity to bring and hold together, and it can certainly be
questioned whether the truth of the Bible and the Holy Spirit genuflect and bow
to the American republican way. But, such is Pinnock’s argument in The Untapped Power of Sheer Christianity. This
is his manifesto and apologia for renewal and reformation in the church, and
such a position has been held near and dear by many in both the USA and Canada.
The more populist version of this position (and its worrisome features) is well
portrayed in Judith Haiven’s Faith, Hope
no Charity: An Inside Look at the Born Again Movement in Canada and the United
States (1984). A more sophisticated understanding of the differences within
American conservatism are well articulated in James Skillen’s The Scattered Voice: Christians at Odds in
the Public Square (1990). Skillen lists three types of American
conservatives: Pro-American Conservatives, Cautious and Critical
Conservatives and Sophisticated
Neo-Conservative. There is no doubt Pinnock was most at home
with the Sophisticated Neo-Conservatives, but he had some affinity with the
other forms of conservatism. We need, in Canada, a version of Skillen’s The Scattered Voice that highlights how
Canadian Christians are at odds in the public square and why.
It would be interesting to compare and contrast Pinnock’s The Untapped Power of Sheer Christianity (1985)
with George Grant’s Lament for a Nation
(1965). Pinnock claims to be conservative and a defender of conservatism, but
Pinnock’s understanding of conservatism is, in many ways, the opposite of
Grant’s. Pinnock stands more in the family tree of Ernest/Preston Manning’s
political manifesto, Political
Realignment: A Challenge to Thoughtful Canadians (1967).
Pinnock has grappled with both the theological and political
dimensions of the Calvinist tradition for many years. Calvinism in North
America, when interpreted in a public and political manner, tends to go in
three directions: social democracy, republicanism and theocracy. Theocracy is
very much on the fringe, and understandably so. But, within Canada, there has
been a heated debate within the Dutch Calvinist tradition between the social
democrats and the republicans. This intense and hard fought battle did much to
divide the Dutch Calvinists.
The social democratic tradition was embodied in Citizens for
Public Justice (CPJ), and the more republican tradition in Christian Labour
Association of Canada (CLAC). Gerald Vandezande came to represent the CPJ
tradition, and Christians in the Crises:
Towards Responsible Citizenship (1983), by Vandezande, argued the Calvinist
and Reformed Christian social democratic position well. There were
contributions in Christians in the Crises
by a variety of well known Canadian Christians (Bishop Remi do Roo, John
Redekop, Brian Stiller, Lois Wilson, Archbishop Ted Scott, Paul Marshall,
Warren Allmand, Don Page, Bill Blaikie and Nick Van Duyvendyk). Gerald
Vandezande had very much crossed the Canadian Christian Tradition with his
moderate social democratic political theology. But, there was opposition to
Vandezande’s position.Harry
Antonides lead the charge for CLAC. I mention this for the simple reason that
Pinnock was a supporter of one tradition and was not at home in the other. It’s
not difficult to guess where Pinnock tipped his theological cap. Antonides was
favoured and Vandezande was not. We can see how far to the political right
Pinnock had gone by supporting Antonides. Many who sided with Vandezande such as Redekop and Stiller
are icons in the Canadian evangelical establishment.
Harry Antonides had done much work in building up CLAC. He
argued for a market system, he was suspicious of statist intervention, realized
there was a need for unions, but he opposed the larger unions. He wrote a
political manifesto (more comprehensive than Pinnock’s), and Pinnock wrote a
foreward to it. The Social Gospel and Its
Contemporary Legacy: Stones for Bread (1985) pulled no punches. It was, in
many ways, a frontal assault on Vandezande’s Christians in the Crises. Antonides argues that the social gospel
tradition in Canada (and its political, theological and intellectual roots) is
shot through with problems. We are now the victims of such an ideology and
system, and we need to oppose it (root and branch). Such an ideology offers
bread, but only stones are delivered. Pinnock wrote a warm and cheery
‘foreward’ to Antonides’ Stones for
Bread, and we can see yet once again how Pinnock is doing his political
theology. But, Pinnock moved ever deeper and further into the fray, and to this
we now turn. The fact that Pinnock had sided with Antonides and the republican
American tradition did place him, in Canada, not in the sensible centre, as he
might like to think, but much more on the political right. Canada has, of
course, a quite different tradition religious and political heritage than the
USA.
Crux magazine is
published by Regent College, and Regent College is one of the most important
(if not the most important) Evangelical Seminary in Canada. Regent College
tends to have soft right of centre leanings. Preston Manning has been on their
board of directors, has taught course there and the institution tends to waffle
between a decidedly
pietist approach to faith or a more republican tradition.
Those of a more social democratic persuasion or anarchist left leanings are in
the minority. Pinnock, as I mentioned above, taught at Regent College from
1974-1977. There is little doubt that by the 1980s, Pinnock had moved a long
distance from his anarchist left, Sojouners, Jim Wallis and John Howard Yoder
days. Pinnock furthered his republican argument in an article in Crux (December 1987) called ‘Pursuit of
Utopia, Betrayal of the Poor’. The article is full of obvious passion, animated
but rather simplistic and dualistic. Pinnock argues that the left (whether of the
Marxist, communist, socialist, liberationist or anarchist left variety) is shot
through with utopian, idealistic and naïve tendencies. There is little of good
that has and can come from the left, and much hurt and harm has come. Western
intellectuals and Christian churchman need to awaken from their ideological
slumber and see the writing on the wall. The religious and political left does
not help the poor. It has a poor track record when it comes to assisting the
poor. It is the American republican and political right that truly has done
more to bring freedom and alleviate the poor than the left. Pinnock comes out
with both fists swinging in this article. There tends to be more rhetoric to it
than serious political substance. The political left tends to be demonized and
the right somewhat idealized. Pinnock is aware enough to realize a market
economy is not perfect, but it is better than the alternatives. It is, in
short, the best of the worst, and the best we can do in a fallen and imperfect
world. The saints and heroes of the realist right are brought out for one and
all to see and admire (Novak, Neuhaus, Berger, Nash, Schlossberg, Lefever and
Billingsley).
The problem with ‘Pursuit of Utopia, Betrayal of the Poor’
is that it is bad political theory, and it is bad political theology. I suppose
this becomes a problem when theologians lack some training in political theory.
The article is dualistic, and it certainly ignores the Western European,
Skandinavian and Canadian religious and political traditions. It is quite
possible, and it does not take a great deal of thought to think outside of the
politics of the left and the right. It is quite possible to oppose and say No
to Marx,
Communism, Fascism. Naziism, Socialism and the Anarchist
Left without saying Yes to capitalism and various types of American
republicanism. There are, between these two obvious extremes, democratic
socialism, social democracy and High/Red Toryism. It is of little help to
reduce political thought and political theology to either-or categories.
Pinnock has done this in Pursuit
of Utopia, Betrayal of the Poor, and this is a serious fault and failing in
this article. Even if Pinnock had turned to the Baptist roots of Tommy Douglas
(and the CCF), he would have found a form of social democracy that was neither
on the left nor right. The NDP in Canada has never allowed the democratic
socialists to take over the party. Pinnock could also have learned much from
George Grant and Stephen Lea*censored* (both well known Canadian High Tories) who were
neither on the right or left.
Pinnock chased down the political left in ‘Pursuit of
Utopia, Betrayal of the Poor’ and branded them as ideologues, and he was right
to do so. The left has done much violence, hurt and harm in the world, and
ideologues within such a tribe and clan are often blind to the folly and
foolishness of the left. But the language of ideology is a double edged sword.
Pinnock does not seem to see that American republicanism and the market economy
is also an ideology that has caused much hurt and harm, havoc and suffering in
the world. Pinnock does not seem to see that he has merely traded ideologies.
He was once a pietistic ideologue (separating faith and politics in true
Lockian fashion). He then became a brand of communist (voting communist in the
1974 Vancouver municipal election) and anarchist left—just another form of
ideology. And, by the 1987 article he was a true believer in the political
right—just another form of ideology. It is this failure, by Pinnock, to think
outside of the right-left categories that makes him a political dualist and
ideologue, and his political theology seriously suffers because of this rather
simplistic and cartoon like approach to political theory and action.
Pinnock’s vocal position won him many friends on the far
edges of the Canadian political right and within the American republican
tradition. The larger political questions did need to be fleshed out in areas
of aid and development, and Pinnock once again was up to the task. This
conference brought Pinnock back to Schaeffer, L’Abri and Switzerland. The
centre of the L’Abri community was in Huemoz-Villars Switzerland. Time magazine had once called L’Abri
‘Mission to Intellectuals’ (L’Abri:
p.223). A group of right wing leaning intellectuals gathered at Villars in the
spring of 1987 to ponder the issues of political ideologies, poverty, aid and
development. Pinnock joined the club, and “The Villars Statement On Relief and
Development” was the birthed child of such a gathering.
A book was published a year later, Freedom, Justice, And Hope: Toward a Strategy for the Poor and the
Oppressed (1988). Pinnock’s article, ‘The Pursuit of Utopia’, built on but
basically stated the same themes as ‘Pursuit of Utopia, Betrayal of the Poor’.
The left betrays the poor with its utopian and unrealistic tendencies, whereas
the market economy and the political
right provide the best approach to solving the problems of poverty and ending
various forms of totalitarianism. Those who signed the Villars Statement speak
much about the right of centre leanings of L’Abri and the union of faith and
republican politics as applied to issues of aid and development.
The Christian aid/development organizations that signed the
Villars Statement such as Food for the Hungry and World Vision speak much about
their market approach and republican way of solving the issue of poverty. Right
wing American Christians such
Michael Cromartie, Lane Dennis, the American George Grant
(not to be confused with the Canadian George Grant), Ronald Nash and Herbert
Schlossberg signed the accord. Udo Middlemann and Ranald Macaulay (both of
l’Abri were on board as was, of course,
Clark Pinnock. Carl Henry (the dean and godfather of much
American Reformed and Evangelical theology) wrote this about the book. ‘It has
the priorities where they belong and speaks a sobering word to a decade
frustrated by inadequate alterantives’. It is important to note that many who
signed the Villars Statement had strong Calvinist and Reformed leanings.
Pinnock might have severed some ties, at a higher theological level, with a
form of scholastic and propositional Calvinism, but he is still immersed and
entrapped in much of their right of centre approach to economics, the market
and the role of society and the state in both. Pinnock, in short, speaks much
about being entrapped and entangled in ideology, but he fails to see how
entrapped, enmeshed and entangled he is in the American right of centre
ideology. Is this how political theology should be done?
The 1990s saw Pinnock wage many a theological war on the
question of human responsibility and God’s grace. The turn to Wesley, and
Wesley’s criticisms (from within an Anglican-Orthodox tradition) of extreme
notions of election and double election should be noted. Callen makes it appear
as if itFi is Wesley’s grounding in the Orthodox tradition that opens him to
the notion of reciprocity between God and humans, but Wesley was a High Church
Anglican, and within such a tradition, the notion of human will and
responsibility and God’s welcoming and evocative grace walk hand and hand.
The language used is ‘’synergism’ rather than reciprocity,
but the meanings are much the same. Pinnock has turned to Wesley and the
Arminian tradition for a more nuanced approach to the Divine-Human encounter
and journey, and this has offended many within the Reformed and Evangelical
clans. Those of us who live, move and have our being within the Classical
Christian Tradition find such a move quite normal, sane and sensible.
But, given the extremism of a certain kind of
Augustinian-Calvinist theology, there had to be a break. Pinnock made, to his
credit, such a break with a bad and reactionary form of theology. The point to
note, here, though, is that when this approach to theology is translated into
the world of economic and social questions he still holds high the protestant
work ethic and Calvinism. The break and a cutting of the ties are minimal at
most. But the controversies stirred by these decisions in the 1980s and 1990s
have kept Pinnock busy with many things. His notion of ‘Open Theism’ continues
to irritate many and enrage the Evangelical Sanhedrin in North America.
The fact that Pinnock has been preoccupied with many other
hot button theological issues in the 1990s and the early years of the 21st
century has meant less has been done in the area of political theology. But,
the publication of Ronald Nash’s Why the
Left is Not Right: The Religious Left: Who They Are and What They Believe (1996)
brought Pinnock to front stage yet again. Ronald Nash is a well known Reformed
theologian in the USA, and he has strong republican commitments. God and
republicans although not one and the same do have many an elective affinity.
Nash, in Why the Left is Not Right
targets anything left of his right of centre leanings. Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo
and Ron Sider are immediate targets. Clinton, liberalism (social liberalism
that is) and liberation theology have an axe taken to them. Pinnock is held
high as the a courageous thinker and activist who was once taken in by the leftist
agenda, awoke from such an ideological slumber and is now on the right
political way. Pinnock is used to critique the left and highlight why Wallis
and tribe are uncritical lapdogs of the left. Why the Left is Not Right is as ideological and reactionary as the
left that it caricatures and criticizes. Surely, there is a need for a serious
and substantive political theology that can think beyond the tribalism of the
left (in its various shapes, guises and forms) and the clan like mentality of
the right (and its various shapes, guises and forms). Sadly so, Ronald Nash and
Clark Pinnock don’t be able to do this, and this is a serious flaw in their
ideological political theology.
How then, as Canadians, are we to do political theology? Is
there a prophetic way of evading and eluding the entrapment and entangling of
the political right, sensible centre and left? Is there a way of realizing all
three families, clans and tribes are speaking some good, but they are also
blind to certain faults and failings? The answer to this points the way to a
more prophetic political theology rather than an ideological political
theology.
I agree with Pinnock that we must, in doing political
theology, beware of the ideological temptation and idol, but I think Pinnock,
for the most part, is an American ideologue of the political right.
If we are in desperate need of a truly Conservative
prophetic political theology within Canada as opposed to an ideological
political theology, who are some of the women and men we should hear to point
us in such a direction? First, in the area of political economy and political
philosophy Stephen Lea*censored* and George Grant can offer us a much sounder notion
of Canadian conservatism than can the Manning clan, Pinnock or American
republicanism. Second, Canadian conservative historians such as Donald
Creighton and W.L. Morton point in saner and more sensible directions than
Pinnock would take us. Poets such as Marya Fiamengo and Milton Acorn raise all
the hard political questions about liberalism, and they point the way to a more
Red and High Tory path and trail.
When we lose our memory, Orwellian like, we can be taught to
believe anything and everything. Most Canadians have little knowledge of the
Canadian way, and until this process of remembering begins, we will forever be
the slaves and victims of other states, cultures, times and places. Those who
turn to elsewhere communities, as Pinnock has often done, perpetuate a colonial
way of doing theology in Canada. A post-colonial prophetic theology needs to
begin, at a minimum, with challenging the theological compradors in Canada and
pointing the way to deep Canadian wells where we can, once again, dip our
buckets and slake our thirsts.
I opened this essay with a quote about Pinnock from
Callen. Callen said that Pinnock “is one of the world’s best-known and most
creative and controversial theologians”. When it comes to doing political
theology is either the anarchist left or the republican right really creative
and controversial? The republican right serves immense power and imperial
interests and the anarchist left is just the reaction to it. They are really
forms of political tweedledee and tweedledum; they live in a symbiotic
relationship that is highly flawed and problematic. I also used a quote from
Pinnock about the Beatitudes in the introduction. Can we interpret, translate
and apply the Beatitudes to serve American republican and imperial interests?
This seems quite a strain on the text. But, can the Beatitudes be used to
legitimate an anarchist left ideology? I doubt it! We are left with the
question that Bonhoeffer asks of us. What does Jesus and the Beatitudes mean
for us today? Such a question must be answered in a way that leaves pietism far
behind (as an immature notion of faith), and it must transcend the tribalism of
the left, right and centre in the culture wars. A prophetic theology can offer
us a third way beyond an ideological political theology and a theology of
pietism. We are called to pick up such a torch and carry it into the public
square.