Ponderings

Blackwater – Take 3

When my friend accused me of becoming a Republican after my last column in defense of Erik Prince, I knew that I wasn’t done pondering the religious motivations of Blackwater’s founder.

For the sake of review, Blackwater USA is a private “security” company owned by Erik Prince. Blackwater has been the recipient of lucrative (no bid) contracts in Iraq. Prince has invested the profits into philanthropic endeavors that are at the crossroads of religion and politics. Specifically he has created Freiheit Foundation which funds the Acton Institute, the Institute for World Politics, and the Council for National Policy. My support of Prince was not intended to be construed as support for his particular brand of philanthropy nor for our growing reliance on private military contractors, but rather that scapegoating one player doesn’t change the game.

Another friend challenged my support pointing out that Prince is a Christian Supremacist. My immediate response was that ‘zealot’ might be the more appropriate term, but I have continued to ponder the meaning of supremacist. A supremacist is one who believes in a hierarchy of truth and a Christian supremacist believes Christianity to be the supreme truth. Essentially a Chrisitan Supremecist believes that Christians and Christian ideals are more valuable than their counterparts. The goal of Christian Supremecists is to dominate the political landscape, which is ‘dominionism’. Michelle Goldberg, in her book, “Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism”, makes a compelling case that this is the current ground of our American political reality. Although the word ‘supremecist’ evokes for me visions of white hooded thugs, the word is certainly applicable to the the particular mix of religion and politics that we see emerging from this ground.

For me one of the most troubling pieces is the way in which Calvinism is linked to dominionism in these discussions. As a Calvin College graduate, a student of professors like Phillip Holtrop, I find myself repulsed by the ways in which Calvin’s teachings are perverted in the current political-religious climate. Although I am familiar with the stereotypes of predestination and election, I know that many students of Calvin have devoted their life’s work to digging beyond the stereotypes to debunk this hollow and dangerous rhetoric. What I learned during my years in the Dutch heartland of West Michigan is that all of God’s children are created in God’s image and thereby equal. The influences of Humanism in John Calvin’s work were interpreted for us as a challenge to be actively engaged in the world for the good of the most vulnerable in the world. Ethics were understood within context and the rise of the Moral Majority was understood to be in opposition to the essence of Calvinism. Although the so-called Christian dominionism claims Calvinist roots, it is not the version of Calvin that I learned at Calvin College in the early 1980’s. Hence my, perhaps misguided, instinct to defend the dutch West Michigan Prince family.

Ironically, the philanthropists that most clearly embodies the values I learned at Calvin College are probably Bill and Melinda Gates. Last I knew, the Gates family were members of a United Church of Christ congregation and I’m not aware that they have any ties to Calvinism per se. But at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, I read the twin values that “all lives – no matter where they are being led – are of equal value” and “to whom much is given, much is expected.” In a nutshell, this is what I learned in my ethics classes with Professor Holtrop. But then, Erik Prince didn’t have Professor Holtrop. Though he is from the Dutch West Michigan community, he defected from the fold for college, shunning Calvin for another Michigan college, Hillsdale.

Maybe if Erik Prince had gone to Calvin College, he too might have learned to value all lives, not just American Christian ones.