Marilynne Robinson

Here are a couple of selections from a September 2004 New Yorker interview with Marilynne Robinson:

Q. “In your nonfiction collection, ‘The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought,’ you wrote about the sixteenth-century theologian John Calvin, and about his strong sense of humanism and tolerance and his importance to modern thought. He is clearly a presence in the novel.”

A. “John Calvin (Jean Calvin) is one of those surprisingly numerous figures whose importance for weal or woe is always conceded, and whose writing no one seems to read—not even the scholars and the historians. Like all the great theologians, he has had a very complex influence on Western culture. It is as true of him as it is of Augustine and Aquinas that people have found ways to put his thought to crude uses. It is also true that he developed a nonhierarchical metaphysics, based on the splendors of individual human

consciousness, which had a huge impact on the development of the modern West. There has been a fierce polemic against him since he emerged as a figure of importance in the Reformation. His thought is associated with revolution—the rebellion of the Dutch against the Spanish, the wars of religion in France, the parliamentary revolution in England, the American Revolution, and even the French Revolution. In this sense, it surely was a factor in the creation of the modern world. These great struggles, which never really end, are great generators of polemic, and polemic is like scandal—it is vivid, and it sticks. Profound innovations such as universal education, of girls as well as boys, and belief in the sanctity and freedom of the individual conscience were strongly based in Calvin’s thought and practice. So was the belief, sometimes called “secularism,” that the sacred has no boundaries.”

Q. “I understand that you are a deacon, and have delivered sermons at your church.”

A. “I am a Congregationalist. This is one of the most democratic branches of Calvinist tradition. It is so democratic that one’s term as deacon expires after a time, and one becomes an ordinary citizen—as I am now. It is also so democratic that members of the congregation are sometimes called upon to speak, when the pastor (who is elected) has to be away. I have enjoyed the problem of exploring the sermon as a form. It is a deeply instructive experience, a very interesting way to think. And the situation is interesting—to stand in a pulpit does focus the mind, or it should.”