Calvinist Pluriformity Challenges Liberal Assimilation: A Novel Case for Publicly Funding Alberta's Private Schools, 1953-1967

Abstract

Between 1958 and 1967, neo-Calvinist immigrants resisted the assimilating pressure of Alberta's liberal-inspired public school system by arguing that public funding should be extended to independent schools. This essay analyzes how neo-Calvinist ideas about the nature of society, the place of religion in public life, the purpose of schools, and the state's task in regards to plurality directly challenged mainstream thinking on these issues. The essay argues that the neo-Calvinists believed their new idea of a pluriform public order created space for Albertans to imagine public policies that could escape the assimilating tendencies of mainstream liberalism. Entre 1958 et 1967, les immigrants neo-calvinistes ont resiste aux pressions assimilatrices du systeme liberal d'ecoles publiques de l'Alberta en affirmant que les fonds publics devraient egalement financer les ecoles independantes. Le present article analyse comment les idees neo-calvinistes portant sur la nature de la societe, la place de la religion dans la vie publique, la raison d'etre des ecoles et la tâche de l'etat en matiere de pluralite ont directement influe sur la facon de penser du grand public sur ces sujets. L'article avance que les Neo-calvinistes croyaient que leur nouvelle idee d'un ordre public pluriforme permettait aux Albertains d'imaginer des politiques publiques qui pourraient echapper aux tendances assimilatrices du liberalisme conventionnel. In 1967, the first government cheques supporting Alberta's private or independent schools1 arrived in the mail, a development almost unthinkable for the previous century. The majority in Alberta-hereafter referred to as mainstream Alberta-long believed public funding should be reserved exclusively for public schools. The principal leaders in the fight for public funding emerged from the neo-Calvinist Dutch immigrant community-hereafter referred to as the neo-Calvinist community-most of whom arrived after the First World War. They believed equitable public funding should be given to all bona fide schools whether they were public, separate, or independent. This difference over the propriety of publicly funding private schools can be attributed in part to a clash of majority and minority interests. At heart, however, the struggle was rooted in deeper disagreements centring on divergent world views and clashing public philosophies. Both the mainstream and minority players in this struggle were Protestant Christian, but they disagreed fundamentally over key ideas such as the nature of society, the place of religion in public life,2 the purpose of schools in society, and the role of the state in regards to plurality. The respective world views and public philosophies of these communities led them to advocate very different policy approaches to diversity and schooling. This essay analyzes the ways in which the neo-Calvinist world view and the idea of public pluriformity challenged and critiqued the majority's liberal, assimilating approach to school policy between 1953 and 1967.3 The conflict over public funding for independent schools in Alberta was a classic tale of David versus Goliath. Alberta's independent school sector at the time was tiny, involving about 21 schools (Digout 1969, 32). The neo-Calvinist immigrant community, which led this struggle, numbered only about 11,000 out of the provincial population of 1,332,000 in 1961 (see Yearbook 1961).4 Most of the neo-Calvinists were members of the Christian Reformed Church or other smaller Reformed denominations (Ganzevoort 1988, 101-102). Not only was the neo-Calvinist community small, but its form of Calvinism was alien to most Albertans. It had been shaped by Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) along with other Dutch Reformed leaders who sought to update the Calvinist idea of God's sovereign care of creation in order to address a rapidly modernizing culture. Kuyper's willingness to reform Calvinism when it appeared wrong or antiquated led critics to refer to him as a neo-Calvinist. …