Evangelicals (not) for Bush

Given the left's knee-jerk characterization of American evangelicals as brainless followers of President Bush, an open letter to the President, signed by 100 faculty members at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, should give pause. Whether or not it should give any comfort is another question.

President Bush is scheduled to deliver Calvin's commencement address this Saturday, the day on which the letter will appear in the Grand Rapids Press. This morning's Washington Times covers the story, and it makes clear that those professors and staff who oppose Bush want to deliver the message that, in the words of history professor Randall Jelks, who is gathering signatures for the letter, "we are not Lynchburg," i.e. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

Here is the text of the letter as it appears on the Chronicle of Higher Education's (subscription) web site:

An Open Letter to the President of the United States of America, George W. Bush

On May 21, 2005, you will give the commencement address at Calvin College. We, the undersigned, respect your office, and we join the college in welcoming you to our campus. Like you, we recognize the importance of religious commitment in American political life. We seek open and honest dialogue about the Christian faith and how it is best expressed in the political sphere. While recognizing God as sovereign over individuals and institutions alike, we understand that no single political position should be identified with God's will, and we are conscious that this applies to our own views as well as those of others. At the same time we see conflicts between our understanding of what Christians are called to do and many of the policies of your administration.

As Christians we are called to be peacemakers and to initiate war only as a last resort. We believe your administration has launched an unjust and unjustified war in Iraq.

As Christians we are called to lift up the hungry and impoverished. We believe your administration has taken actions that favor the wealthy of our society and burden the poor.

As Christians we are called to actions characterized by love, gentleness, and concern for the most vulnerable among us. We believe your administration has fostered intolerance and divisiveness and has often failed to listen to those with whom it disagrees.

As Christians we are called to be caretakers of God's good creation. We believe your environmental policies have harmed creation and have not promoted long-term stewardship of our natural environment.

Our passion for these matters arises out of the Christian faith that we share with you. We ask you, Mr. President, to re-examine your policies in light of our God-given duty to pursue justice with mercy, and we pray for wisdom for you and all world leaders.

Concerned faculty, staff, and emeriti of Calvin College

The Times also reports that the student newspaper, the Chimes, is urging the 900 graduates of the school to wear black armbands to protest Bush's appearance. Calvin's press release on the commencement makes no mention of the letter, but in an effort to demonstrate bipartisanship, it does note that liberal evangelical Jim Wallis spoke there May 5.

Back when I was researching Choosing the Right College, I found student newspapers to be an excellent source for gauging what the administration of small schools such as Calvin would allow. What I found, more often than not, was that such papers reflected not the pious, reverent student body depicted in college PR, but a fairly irreverent, typical student culture that had a great deal in common with its secular counterparts. The differences centered primarily around the writers' desire to portray their independence and originality by cutting against the grain of official institutional culture.

So, for example, if Calvin's president and board of trustees project an image of proper evangelicalism, some students cultivate the image of a religious (if unformed and unread) James Dean, a tortured soul whose freedom is expressed by -- well, by spending four years at a small church college. It may seem an odd fit, but, as the letter above shows, it's a pose not limited to underage drinkers. Sometimes it's easier to be the rebel when doing so requires nothing more than voting Democratic.

Skim through the Chimes and you'll find the usual mix of crude humor, left-wing cant, and even the perennial favorite at, it seems, every campus in the nation: the "they're about to drive all the campus dogs away" tale. All in all, it's pretty standard fare, which is to say, it doesn't seem particularly religious, and it's certainly not conservative. That said, it's never safe to assume that any student newspaper speaks for the entire student body or a majority of professors, and I have no doubt that many elements of the school take seriously its mission statement and strive to live up to its high standards.

Which returns me to my initial point: not all evangelicals are for the President. My friend and Democracy Project board member, Wilfred McClay, made a similar point, albeit far more eloquently, in an address delivered at the Ethics and Public Policy Center this past February. Titled "The Evangelical Conservatism of George W. Bush, or, How the Republicans Became Red," the talk received quite a bit of attention, especially after a not-terribly-incisive Buckley column on it, and it will certainly provoke more debate in the future. One of McClay's central points was that evangelicalism is not necessarily a good match for Republican or conservative politics, although I'm not sure the letter from Calvin's faculty depicts the kind of opposition he had in mind, as it's little more than boilerplate campus liberalism.

So I'll end with a question or, better, a series of questions: if evangelicals, and especially evangelical intellectuals, are going to oppose the Bush agenda, on what will that opposition be based? And will it rest on anything that sets it apart as evangelical opposition, rather than mere liberal opposition? Are there any distinguishing features of intellectual evangelicalism that give its adherents peculiar or valuable insights into the Bush agenda, and can that opposition draw on conservative tradition rather than liberal clichés?

Update: Joseph Knippenberg at No Left Turns wrote about this controversy yesterday. Joe quotes from a Calvin alum and former history professor, Dale van Kley, who wrote a caustic, utterly predictable letter excoriating the President for killing "hundreds of thousands," etc. He's now at Ohio State, a move for which other Calvin alums who worry about their alma mater's liberal wing can be thankful. Joe also links to several letters to the editor of the Chimes.