Calvinism Preferred Over the "New" Social Vision??

Wow..I am reeling from what I heard from Marilynne Robinson on Sunday and then what I read today in her book of essays: The Death Of Adam. Robinson is an advocate for the ideas of John Calvin! In one essay: Puritans and Prigs, she first explains why the Puritans had nothing on the prigs of today! She goes on to explain on why the Calvinist doctine of the total depravity of man, is a leveling and freeing doctrine which is preferable to the social vision of today. She says today's social vision is nothing new, likening it to Stalinism and Leninism. She says Calvin's doctrine that we are all sinners gives us excellent grounds for forgiveness and self-forgiveness and is kindlier than any modern day expectation that we might be saints. She describes the social vision of today is an unsystematic, uncritical, unconscious perfectionism. She comments that the zealots of today are marked by priggishness.... zealots who in actuality develop class markers and "defend magnimity while asserting class advantage" -- "there is simple snobbery." (pg 162)

Later in the essay she writes: "Calvinists spoke of an elect, Leninists and suchlike have spoken of an elete. The 2 words come from the same root and mean the same thing. .... Our elites (today) are simply, in one way or another, advantaged. Those of us who have shared advantage know how little it assures, or that it assures nothing, or that it is a positive threat to one's moral soundness, attended as it is with so many encouragements to complacency and insensitivity." (pg 167)

Ok, well, this is such an inadequate overview of the essay that I am afraid an apology must accompany it. Robinson's writing is something that has to be experienced. She didn't win a Pulitzer for her novel Giliad or become an instructor at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop over 15 years ago, without excellent reason. I hope to digest more in the days and weeks to come. Stay tuned.