Authority. Protestantism often encourages a church-shopping mindset, and one thing that converts are seeking is escape from life as one vast intellectual choose-your-own-adventure novel.
This was a big thing in Heavens To Betsy, one of the Betsy-Tacy books set around 1900. Betsy's older sister, who was gifted musically, was expected to choose her preferred branch of Protestantism when she came of age. I think Betsy's parents were Baptist, but they sang, danced, played cards and drank alcohol, so I'm not sure exactly how Baptist they were. Betsy's older sister chose a branch that incorporated music in its services as music was her gift from God.
Church shopping is not a new thing in Protestantism. Those stories were set around the start of the 20th century. In one book, Betsy's father buys a motor-car, and, in another, Betsy works on an essay about the recently annexed Phillipines. I got the impression that Protestantism in all its forms was seen as the background, and, so, nearly invisible. I don't remember any Catholic or Jewish characters in those books. The only religious oddball was a lone atheist who was proud, as a matter of civic pride, that his small town finally had its own church.
That form of Protestantism is a lot like Judaism. All Jews agree on the god count, but it diverges from there. I can understand the lure of a totalitarian, centralized religion, one that presents no choices but simply requires submission.Sometimes the menu is overwhelming, and the table d'hote beckons. Of course, accepting such a religion is yet another choice.
Is it the case that atheists are more likely to be secular-Protestant than anything else and so the successful absorption of Protestantism into mainstream culture makes it less marginally appealing to converts?
But shouldn't Protestantism's similarities to culture make it *more* appealing in lots of ways? Convert to Protestantism and keep many of your baseline assumptions about the world, or convert to Catholicism and believe in strange things like transubstantiation, confession, prayers to Mary?
If you are already believing in the divinity of Jesus and the authority of scripture, transubstantiation isn't much of an ask at all. Jesus did say some things to that effect, most reckon.
Anyone who is OK with quantum superposition ought to be able to handle transubstantiation. [No they are NOT the same thing and the former does not "explain" the latter.]
I understand what you are getting at in that they are similarly "weird" claims. However, we should not target "OKness of claims" but "OKness of reasons." The inductive process by which one arrives at these claims is totally different. Superposition goes through a series of experiments that seem to contradict our "common sense physics", and the conclusion of that chain of induction we call quantum superposition.
The transubstantiation claim comes from a particular reading of Gospels and commentary of early church leaders which leads to that philosophical conclusion which catholics call transubstantiation (which also contradicts "common sense physics"). There is a key inductive difference. The type of evidence in these two cases are not isomorphic. One is repeatable experiment, the other is textual induction from a range of authorities.
However, in another way there is isomorphism.
If you take standard Christian theology evidence standards and apply them to the eucharist, you are likely to arrive at transubstantiation or some Lutherany or Anglicanny variant. If you take standard physics evidence standards you will arrive at QS and one of its interpretations.
I think you're on the right track here. People are looking for a change, especially intellectuals looking for novel stimulation, and I think this goes doubly so for public intellectuals also looking to burnish their image and make their branding more distinct, even if they won't admit that in public or even to themselves.
That said, I might lean in an especially cynical direction here since any time I've come close to officially joining any religion, but especially Catholicism, I've found myself more and more devoid of any genuine religious belief. But still I don't think the novelty factor should be overlooked.
A cradle Catholic; fell away from the Church (and far too much else) when in college. Decided (as many of a certain age do) that a god with whom I wanted any part of would not permit the world as it was. Won't bore you with my discovery of God, but I perceived Catholicism as Christianity with training wheels. Glossing over a lifetime of revelation, I've learned that churches are of men, and that the respected denominations of my youth have, since at least the '60s, executed a dive to a sort of lowest common denominator of being all things to all people. The result has been a lot of moldering edifices that have become not much of anything to anybody. (And the Catholic Church, at least at the Vatican level, is struggling to follow in those footsteps; but that's another story.) "Interpret" scripture? It's pretty clear. I tend toward churches that offer decent music (I'm a choral tenor, that rarest of beasts), intellectually supportable preaching, a minimum of wokeist weirdness (and/or other clear departures from scripture), and (as long as I have children in any way under my wing) a decent Christian Education program. I can well understand a seeker walking into many protestant churches and being unsure what they're about. (Although doing its best to debauch it) the Catholic Church at least maintains a recognizable brand.
(Not sure that's what you were wondering; my best guess.)
I think there's still a certain vogue for high Anglicanism among conservative intellectual converts to Christianity in England, for reasons ultimately connected with its establishment in (a) the State and (b) the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Depending on your point of view that might or might not constitute conversion to Protestantism…
Atheism. Maybe I shouldn't have said "converted" but I was super strict about it instead of a passive sort of atheist so it is kind of fitting. What are your stories of finding God @Fergus and @Daniel?
"Converted" definitely does make sense in that case!
I was raised in a Catholic home in Ireland (mass most weekends, a family member was a priest, I was an alter server as a child, etc). Religion just faded from my life over time -- it's not something I think about often and I just tend to ignore any and all labels associated with it now. I have no doubt that aspects of Catholicism/Christianity are deeply rooted in my life given my upbringing but otherwise I just have little interest in it. Also, seeing how much crap religion has caused (growing up at the tail-end of the Troubles and the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals), I personally struggle to view religion as something other than dividing and interfering.
I understand that religion serves a meaningful purpose for many people and have no issues with that at all; I'll never be the one to try push someone in one direction or the other. What sparked your atheism to Protestantism conversion?
I converted to Catholicism rather than to a protestant group because all of the others seemed to be worldly commentaries on Catholicism, rather than being things by themselves.
They might be Catholicism without the Pope or without bishops or without purgatory, etc. But why not have the whole thing?
Purgatory was, to me, was the biggest scandal. Protestant theologians changed what they believed about the last things purely as a way of stopping the abuse of indulgences here on Earth. Truth was a secondary consideration at most. It's hard to escape the conclusion that they didn't really believe anything, and that heaven and hell were, for them, just poetic ways of talking.
There might be strong arguments against purgatory but if there are then they were all constructed post hoc to justify a policy that the theologians wanted.
Catholicism might be flawed in practise but I do think that it is sincere.
then read Eamon Duffy´s the Stripping of the Altars. Or Heinrich Denifle´s Luther and Lutherdom. catholic convert here, protestantism is simply not a serious religion the more you look into it. something like assurance, its only held by heretical groups throughout church history, valatians, etc, and then, boom, its dogma in the westminister confession. the Holy Spirit was wrong about Assurance for 1500 years? it cannot be. Go through the list, priesthood, confession, eucharist, intercession of saints, etc, the testimony of church history is unanimous. i wrote about this here: https://sanctistulti.substack.com/p/on-protestantism
As an American Protestant, I think your three factors hit on something I see frequently among peers and intellectuals. Mark Noll's 1994 book on "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" continues to be relevant. I also think two of the big appeals of Catholicism to intellectuals are:
1) There is something to the sense that the Catholic church, by virtue of being old, has a stability and sense that it has stood the test of time that many Evangelical protestant church, by virtue of the entrepreneurial nature of those churches, have not. Intellectuals often distrust things that feel like a marketplace with alot of sale pitches and gimmicky innovations, but I think this is especially in their faith - where they probably feel social stigma for diverging from the secular baseline that many of their peers adhere to
2) I think the Catholic reservoir of teaching specifically on social teaching and culture is appealing. As someone with strong reformed/Presbyterian roots, I would be remiss to say that this exists within protestantism, but the majority of churches in evangelical Protestantism have much more of a folk approach to social and political issues, that is much more easily captured by entrepreneurial political figures (see the rise of a certain entrepreneurial political figure's status among American evangelicals between 2015 and the present)
I am a convert to orthodoxy, was an atheist (frankly anti theist) for most of my life and when i got caught by Christ- like a fish in a net-- not for a moment did I consider Protestantism and thought of Catholicism for a hot minute before deciding that the eastern orthodox church was the right choice, in fact the only choice.
I think that for intellectuals and anyone intelligent in general- when they read the history of Christianity (which an intellectual will probably do when coming to Christ) will conclude that the sacramental and traditional churches are truer to real organic Christianity and that much of Protestantism in ahistorical and false.
Catholicism has a lot going for it- it is ancient and sacramental, and I feel nothing but respect for Catholics but in my opinion contemporary Catholicism is too compromised, too modern and that the current pope is a living argument against Catholicism. that is in addition to doctrinal issues that I believe the orthodox have correct and the RC is in error about.
besides knowing Christian history another factor for intellectuals going toward sacramental churches is that they have more rigor (i abstain from animal products for a third of the year as the church asks), Protestantism asks little from its adherents and often is just a set of propositions one adheres too, in my church Christianity is lived it is something you do and not merely something you believe, perhaps intellectuals do not want to live in their heads all the time, getting on your knees and putting your forehead to the floor can be a powerful antidote to passive intellectual navel-gazing.
I invite anyone interested in Christianity as an adherent or merely curious to come to an orthodox service- the protestants have a lot of truth and none of the beauty, Catholicism has even more truth and much beauty- eastern orthodoxy has all the truth and all the beauty.
truth and beauty are what the current culture needs.
I didn't really make a distinction between different parts of Protestantism, but healthy Reformed churches do expect spiritual change on the part of their adherents. Calvin: 'It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone'. Obviously many ignore this
Amen! I said something similar above about my (planned) conversion to Orthodoxy, but you've put it in much more eloquent terms than myself. The Orthodox Church has beauty, strong cultural roots, and overall the best historical case for being the true church as far as I can tell.
I've been to a couple of Orthodox services, one Greek, one Russian. I gather there are others what with the Ukraine in the news. Since I don't speak Greek or Russian, I could only pick up so much. Are they basically the same but in different languages? Which did you choose?
OCA - I live in the USA and attend an OCA church (Orthodox church in america) I've been to Antiochian churches and several Greek as well, and while there were some Greek and Arabic elements in both services, they were 90% in English. the OCA has Russian roots but is quite American. I know that it is certainly different in Europe- I live in the northeast and i while orthodox churches are not as common as protestant and catholic, they are certainly not rare. in other parts of the US people drive one to two hours to attend an orthodox church.
i wish you well-.
(bty- they are basically the same liturgy- but for me the differences are often wonderful.
Agree, but there is lots of scaffolding and hierarchy in some parts of Protestantism! So perhaps there are other reasons why those parts get overlooked.
I converted to Protestant after spending 12 years agnostic. Before that, I was multi-generational Mormon. My ancestors helped found the Mormon church--an ancestor worked closely with Brigham Young and as a nurse/midwife/surgeon, she saved the life of the John Taylor, the third LDS President who was shot in jail alongside Joseph Smith. I chose Episcopalian though I mostly now attend a non-denom evangelical church with Anglican roots. I disagree on the iconography totally lacking in Protestant--Episcopalian musical and architecture is gorgeous and the church I was baptized in--St. Thomas on Fifth Ave.--has all the "smells and bells" you could want--very high church. I chose Protestant b/c I don't believe in papal infallibility, praying to Mary/Saints or Transubstantiation. The Solas of Martin Luther rang true for me. I was heavily influenced by Tim Keller and did attend his Redeemer church and some affiliated Bible study groups. I do agree the broader Protestant movement should be more infused with intellectual inquiry--but if you do want it, you'll absolutely be able to find it. I got baptized in part after studying metaphysics and realized it 100% it takes more faith to be an atheist than believer in a Creator. Dr. Michael Guillen is a Protestant with 3 science Phds from Cornell and is a former Harvard physics professor and former atheist. His ministry Science + God explains how science + God are fully compatible: https://michaelguillen.com/ I'm a Harvard grad and involved with Harvard Christian Alumni Society, whose membership spans Catholic/Protestant/Orthodox, but I'd say it leans Protestant in practice. Christian Union is an Ivy League-wide group that spans the 3 major Christian branches also but its leadership is basically Protestant.
Imagine you're a Public Intellectual in America with no current attachment to any religious group, personally or through friends and family. Catholicism, Judaism and LDS are going to be a lot easier for you to explore. They all have consistent, clearly defined doctrines and rituals, with plenty of resources out there explaining them, and they probably have a significant physical presence in the large coastal city or college town where you live. Plus, they'll be around and more or less consistent wherever you're traveling for conferences, speaking tours, and other sundry Public Intellectual work.
It would be a lot more difficult for you to research, say, an anabaptist group, and more difficult still to join one in any meaningful sense, especially if you want to keep doing your Public Intellectual job.
But even assuming you rule out anabaptist Christianity from the get-go, how do you even figure out where to start with protestantism? There's no default protestant church in the u.s. like there is in Britain. There are dozens or hundreds denominations, even more groups and movements within and across denominations. How much of your religious awakening do you really want to spend trying to figure out what actually is an evangelical, or the difference between the free Methodists and the United Methodists, or the LCMS and the ELCA, etc. x100.
I'm a Liberal who converted to Catholicism notwithstanding that there are a ton of "challenging" Cardle and Convert Catholics -- DeSantis, Cruz, Rubio, Abbott, Bannon, Vance, Vermuele, Deneen -- but we have song about that: "Gentile Jew, Servant or Free, Woman or Man, no more; One Bread one Body." In 2000 years we've had worse.
I guess I'm curious how an intellectual considering a Protestant denomination would grapple with the bible, or even deciding which version of the bible to go with. Assuming they aren't taking it literally there still are many questions. Who wrote it and why? Does have divine significance? How do you view the old testament? Even if the bible is taken as allegory, there is a lot to unpack. There are a lot of odd things in the bible, it's a big book!
I just learned about 2 Kings 2:23-24 - where small kids taunt a bald man and, it seems implied, the lord sends two bears to maul and kill these kids. Even if you don't take that as a historical event, does it make sense as an allegory? What does someone take away from it?
I find it unusual that if you were to talk to the average American Christian, and I'm assuming this is the most important book in their life (perhaps I'm wrong on that), they would not be familiar with these more obscure stories (IMO and in my experience). I understand it's a big book, but if I had not just a favorite book, but the most important book to my religion, I would try to know even the obscure stories in it.
Second, the problem was not that the kids called him "baldy." It is the overlooked beginning of their taunt: "Go up!" They are denying his story of Elijah ascending to heaven, the basis of Elisha's office of prophet, passed on to him by Elijah. The implication is that Elisha is a liar at best, a murderer at worst.
By sending the scratched-up boys back to town, alive, to tell their story, the prophetic words of Elisha are confirmed, and the populace more willing to listen to him. That result is far more important than avenging an insult about his lack of hair, which, as you and many readers intuit, is not much of a motivation for a divine intervention.
Some versions of the bible, from what I gather, say "go up" (KJV) as you mention - but others like New International Version say something else "Get out of here, Baldy." So if interpretations are hinging on specific words, it seems really important which bible you pick, and I'd be curious how an intellectuals coming fresh to Protestantism approaches that choice. The KJV I'm looking at says "tare" instead of maul.
This story is only a few lines, but there are still more questions. It's unclear how many "little boys" taunted this bald man, but it seems more clear that the bears (some versions identify them as "she bears" - I'm curious why the bear's sex was noteworthy to the author?) maul or tare 42 boys. Did all 42 boys mock this man, or were some mauled simply due to association with the boys who were doing the mocking?
And if, reading between the lines, that these taunts are not about the man's actual baldness but about these kids denying something larger - why does god choose this way to get people to listen to the word of elisha? God sometimes appears in the old testament and simply tells people things. Why have two female bears maul 42 small children when you could just tell people something directly?
If you are an intellectual who is accustomed to interrogating and being critical of nearly every sentence you read, approaching the bible (whichever one you choose) I think would be quite daunting given the incredible amount of your time needed to not only read each word, but to really understand the historical context, translation issues, and subtleties of stories like 2 Kings 2:23-24 and countless others in the old and new testament.
The NIV translation is a poor one for Bible study, because it is interpretive and paraphrastic in so many places, including this one. The Hebrew word 'alah means "ascend" and can be used intransitively ("be high up") or actively ("mount", etc.). The root meaning of ascend is totally lost in the NIV.
God could choose to validate Elisha's words with a positive miracle, as he did later in several instances. Maybe God acted in this way because the boys were blasphemous and deserved punishment, and we are just a bunch of modern wussies who have a problem with the concept of corporal punishment.
As to your last paragraph, the same would be true if you approached every sentence of any work with skepticism, e.g. reading Greek and Roman historians. But the extreme skepticism seems to be reserved for the Bible. That speaks to prejudices rather than intellectualism.
I agree that skepticism should be applied equally to any endeavor, not just the bible. As for 'extreme skepticism', my view is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you tell me you saw your local city councilmember at the grocery store, I'm going to believe you without asking for proof. But you say you saw Elvis or a divine miracle performed, my standard of proof would be significantly higher. The bible, is of course, full of extraordinary claims, the time period of which is thousands of years ago.
As for modern tastes, you could say that about any number of things the bible views differently than some of us do today. The bible does not consistently and unambiguously say that slavery is wrong and evil. God also seems to get mad at the humans he brought into existence, kills nearly all of humanity (and most animals) in a flood, and then say he won't do it again. God could certainly create humans, and then send two female bears to maul small children for not honoring him or his prophets properly to teach people a lesson. But I could see why intellectuals might not want to be drawn to spending their time and energy studying these texts under the Protestant denomination.
"[N]oting that intellectuals who convert to a religion — of whom there are increasingly many — rarely end up as Protestants."
Is this true? What are examples, other than Ayaan? I would expect the level of religious conversion to track pretty closely with the popularity of religion in general. There are probably more atheist-to-religious conversions now than in the past, but this could be for the trivial arithmetical reason that there are more atheists...
This isn’t a complete answer, but I find in my own experience, as an American, that the idea of converting to Catholicism is utterly bizarre to non-intellectuals who are not themselves devout Catholics. This is true whether they are devout Protestants or lapsed Protestants or Catholics.
This came up because I was exploring the idea of converting to Catholicism for a long time and discussed it with people in all of these groups. They all acted like I was contemplating getting a face tattoo. This includes a guy who actually goes to Mass every week for his wife but is personally more or less a moralistic therapeutic deist. He told me that I ought to be able to at least find a church not run by a “gay mafia.”
There’s something very ordinary about an American finding religion and attending a Protestant church, which for an intellectual increases the appeal of counter-signaling, doing the extraordinary thing and joining the RCC (or, increasingly, EO).
Authority. Protestantism often encourages a church-shopping mindset, and one thing that converts are seeking is escape from life as one vast intellectual choose-your-own-adventure novel.
Yeah, church shopping is much less prevalent in the UK, and that's often a good thing.
This was a big thing in Heavens To Betsy, one of the Betsy-Tacy books set around 1900. Betsy's older sister, who was gifted musically, was expected to choose her preferred branch of Protestantism when she came of age. I think Betsy's parents were Baptist, but they sang, danced, played cards and drank alcohol, so I'm not sure exactly how Baptist they were. Betsy's older sister chose a branch that incorporated music in its services as music was her gift from God.
Church shopping is not a new thing in Protestantism. Those stories were set around the start of the 20th century. In one book, Betsy's father buys a motor-car, and, in another, Betsy works on an essay about the recently annexed Phillipines. I got the impression that Protestantism in all its forms was seen as the background, and, so, nearly invisible. I don't remember any Catholic or Jewish characters in those books. The only religious oddball was a lone atheist who was proud, as a matter of civic pride, that his small town finally had its own church.
That form of Protestantism is a lot like Judaism. All Jews agree on the god count, but it diverges from there. I can understand the lure of a totalitarian, centralized religion, one that presents no choices but simply requires submission.Sometimes the menu is overwhelming, and the table d'hote beckons. Of course, accepting such a religion is yet another choice.
Is it the case that atheists are more likely to be secular-Protestant than anything else and so the successful absorption of Protestantism into mainstream culture makes it less marginally appealing to converts?
But shouldn't Protestantism's similarities to culture make it *more* appealing in lots of ways? Convert to Protestantism and keep many of your baseline assumptions about the world, or convert to Catholicism and believe in strange things like transubstantiation, confession, prayers to Mary?
Why convert if not to change?
If you are already believing in the divinity of Jesus and the authority of scripture, transubstantiation isn't much of an ask at all. Jesus did say some things to that effect, most reckon.
Anyone who is OK with quantum superposition ought to be able to handle transubstantiation. [No they are NOT the same thing and the former does not "explain" the latter.]
I understand what you are getting at in that they are similarly "weird" claims. However, we should not target "OKness of claims" but "OKness of reasons." The inductive process by which one arrives at these claims is totally different. Superposition goes through a series of experiments that seem to contradict our "common sense physics", and the conclusion of that chain of induction we call quantum superposition.
The transubstantiation claim comes from a particular reading of Gospels and commentary of early church leaders which leads to that philosophical conclusion which catholics call transubstantiation (which also contradicts "common sense physics"). There is a key inductive difference. The type of evidence in these two cases are not isomorphic. One is repeatable experiment, the other is textual induction from a range of authorities.
However, in another way there is isomorphism.
If you take standard Christian theology evidence standards and apply them to the eucharist, you are likely to arrive at transubstantiation or some Lutherany or Anglicanny variant. If you take standard physics evidence standards you will arrive at QS and one of its interpretations.
I think you're on the right track here. People are looking for a change, especially intellectuals looking for novel stimulation, and I think this goes doubly so for public intellectuals also looking to burnish their image and make their branding more distinct, even if they won't admit that in public or even to themselves.
That said, I might lean in an especially cynical direction here since any time I've come close to officially joining any religion, but especially Catholicism, I've found myself more and more devoid of any genuine religious belief. But still I don't think the novelty factor should be overlooked.
A cradle Catholic; fell away from the Church (and far too much else) when in college. Decided (as many of a certain age do) that a god with whom I wanted any part of would not permit the world as it was. Won't bore you with my discovery of God, but I perceived Catholicism as Christianity with training wheels. Glossing over a lifetime of revelation, I've learned that churches are of men, and that the respected denominations of my youth have, since at least the '60s, executed a dive to a sort of lowest common denominator of being all things to all people. The result has been a lot of moldering edifices that have become not much of anything to anybody. (And the Catholic Church, at least at the Vatican level, is struggling to follow in those footsteps; but that's another story.) "Interpret" scripture? It's pretty clear. I tend toward churches that offer decent music (I'm a choral tenor, that rarest of beasts), intellectually supportable preaching, a minimum of wokeist weirdness (and/or other clear departures from scripture), and (as long as I have children in any way under my wing) a decent Christian Education program. I can well understand a seeker walking into many protestant churches and being unsure what they're about. (Although doing its best to debauch it) the Catholic Church at least maintains a recognizable brand.
(Not sure that's what you were wondering; my best guess.)
No conversion story is boring!
I think there's still a certain vogue for high Anglicanism among conservative intellectual converts to Christianity in England, for reasons ultimately connected with its establishment in (a) the State and (b) the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Depending on your point of view that might or might not constitute conversion to Protestantism…
I converted to Protestantism at age 30 (I became Presbyterian, specifically) so was especially glad to read this. Great post Fergus!
Thanks Alexander, that's great to hear!
What did you convert from, Alexander, if you're open to sharing?
Atheism. Maybe I shouldn't have said "converted" but I was super strict about it instead of a passive sort of atheist so it is kind of fitting. What are your stories of finding God @Fergus and @Daniel?
"Converted" definitely does make sense in that case!
I was raised in a Catholic home in Ireland (mass most weekends, a family member was a priest, I was an alter server as a child, etc). Religion just faded from my life over time -- it's not something I think about often and I just tend to ignore any and all labels associated with it now. I have no doubt that aspects of Catholicism/Christianity are deeply rooted in my life given my upbringing but otherwise I just have little interest in it. Also, seeing how much crap religion has caused (growing up at the tail-end of the Troubles and the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals), I personally struggle to view religion as something other than dividing and interfering.
I understand that religion serves a meaningful purpose for many people and have no issues with that at all; I'll never be the one to try push someone in one direction or the other. What sparked your atheism to Protestantism conversion?
I converted to Catholicism rather than to a protestant group because all of the others seemed to be worldly commentaries on Catholicism, rather than being things by themselves.
They might be Catholicism without the Pope or without bishops or without purgatory, etc. But why not have the whole thing?
Purgatory was, to me, was the biggest scandal. Protestant theologians changed what they believed about the last things purely as a way of stopping the abuse of indulgences here on Earth. Truth was a secondary consideration at most. It's hard to escape the conclusion that they didn't really believe anything, and that heaven and hell were, for them, just poetic ways of talking.
There might be strong arguments against purgatory but if there are then they were all constructed post hoc to justify a policy that the theologians wanted.
Catholicism might be flawed in practise but I do think that it is sincere.
I don't recognise your picture of the Reformation at all!
I suggest that he's describing far too many of the formerly mainline protestant churches.
then read Eamon Duffy´s the Stripping of the Altars. Or Heinrich Denifle´s Luther and Lutherdom. catholic convert here, protestantism is simply not a serious religion the more you look into it. something like assurance, its only held by heretical groups throughout church history, valatians, etc, and then, boom, its dogma in the westminister confession. the Holy Spirit was wrong about Assurance for 1500 years? it cannot be. Go through the list, priesthood, confession, eucharist, intercession of saints, etc, the testimony of church history is unanimous. i wrote about this here: https://sanctistulti.substack.com/p/on-protestantism
Gavin Ortlund provides in-depth defences of Protestantism on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@TruthUnites and address lots of the points you raise :)
ok ill check it out thanks.
Have you checked out Orthodox Christianity? https://www.goarch.org/introduction
As an American Protestant, I think your three factors hit on something I see frequently among peers and intellectuals. Mark Noll's 1994 book on "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" continues to be relevant. I also think two of the big appeals of Catholicism to intellectuals are:
1) There is something to the sense that the Catholic church, by virtue of being old, has a stability and sense that it has stood the test of time that many Evangelical protestant church, by virtue of the entrepreneurial nature of those churches, have not. Intellectuals often distrust things that feel like a marketplace with alot of sale pitches and gimmicky innovations, but I think this is especially in their faith - where they probably feel social stigma for diverging from the secular baseline that many of their peers adhere to
2) I think the Catholic reservoir of teaching specifically on social teaching and culture is appealing. As someone with strong reformed/Presbyterian roots, I would be remiss to say that this exists within protestantism, but the majority of churches in evangelical Protestantism have much more of a folk approach to social and political issues, that is much more easily captured by entrepreneurial political figures (see the rise of a certain entrepreneurial political figure's status among American evangelicals between 2015 and the present)
I am a convert to orthodoxy, was an atheist (frankly anti theist) for most of my life and when i got caught by Christ- like a fish in a net-- not for a moment did I consider Protestantism and thought of Catholicism for a hot minute before deciding that the eastern orthodox church was the right choice, in fact the only choice.
I think that for intellectuals and anyone intelligent in general- when they read the history of Christianity (which an intellectual will probably do when coming to Christ) will conclude that the sacramental and traditional churches are truer to real organic Christianity and that much of Protestantism in ahistorical and false.
Catholicism has a lot going for it- it is ancient and sacramental, and I feel nothing but respect for Catholics but in my opinion contemporary Catholicism is too compromised, too modern and that the current pope is a living argument against Catholicism. that is in addition to doctrinal issues that I believe the orthodox have correct and the RC is in error about.
besides knowing Christian history another factor for intellectuals going toward sacramental churches is that they have more rigor (i abstain from animal products for a third of the year as the church asks), Protestantism asks little from its adherents and often is just a set of propositions one adheres too, in my church Christianity is lived it is something you do and not merely something you believe, perhaps intellectuals do not want to live in their heads all the time, getting on your knees and putting your forehead to the floor can be a powerful antidote to passive intellectual navel-gazing.
I invite anyone interested in Christianity as an adherent or merely curious to come to an orthodox service- the protestants have a lot of truth and none of the beauty, Catholicism has even more truth and much beauty- eastern orthodoxy has all the truth and all the beauty.
truth and beauty are what the current culture needs.
I didn't really make a distinction between different parts of Protestantism, but healthy Reformed churches do expect spiritual change on the part of their adherents. Calvin: 'It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone'. Obviously many ignore this
Amen! I said something similar above about my (planned) conversion to Orthodoxy, but you've put it in much more eloquent terms than myself. The Orthodox Church has beauty, strong cultural roots, and overall the best historical case for being the true church as far as I can tell.
I've been to a couple of Orthodox services, one Greek, one Russian. I gather there are others what with the Ukraine in the news. Since I don't speak Greek or Russian, I could only pick up so much. Are they basically the same but in different languages? Which did you choose?
OCA - I live in the USA and attend an OCA church (Orthodox church in america) I've been to Antiochian churches and several Greek as well, and while there were some Greek and Arabic elements in both services, they were 90% in English. the OCA has Russian roots but is quite American. I know that it is certainly different in Europe- I live in the northeast and i while orthodox churches are not as common as protestant and catholic, they are certainly not rare. in other parts of the US people drive one to two hours to attend an orthodox church.
i wish you well-.
(bty- they are basically the same liturgy- but for me the differences are often wonderful.
I'll give you the filoque, but the culture never attracted me.
Intellectuals like scaffolding and hierarchy.
Agree, but there is lots of scaffolding and hierarchy in some parts of Protestantism! So perhaps there are other reasons why those parts get overlooked.
I converted to Protestant after spending 12 years agnostic. Before that, I was multi-generational Mormon. My ancestors helped found the Mormon church--an ancestor worked closely with Brigham Young and as a nurse/midwife/surgeon, she saved the life of the John Taylor, the third LDS President who was shot in jail alongside Joseph Smith. I chose Episcopalian though I mostly now attend a non-denom evangelical church with Anglican roots. I disagree on the iconography totally lacking in Protestant--Episcopalian musical and architecture is gorgeous and the church I was baptized in--St. Thomas on Fifth Ave.--has all the "smells and bells" you could want--very high church. I chose Protestant b/c I don't believe in papal infallibility, praying to Mary/Saints or Transubstantiation. The Solas of Martin Luther rang true for me. I was heavily influenced by Tim Keller and did attend his Redeemer church and some affiliated Bible study groups. I do agree the broader Protestant movement should be more infused with intellectual inquiry--but if you do want it, you'll absolutely be able to find it. I got baptized in part after studying metaphysics and realized it 100% it takes more faith to be an atheist than believer in a Creator. Dr. Michael Guillen is a Protestant with 3 science Phds from Cornell and is a former Harvard physics professor and former atheist. His ministry Science + God explains how science + God are fully compatible: https://michaelguillen.com/ I'm a Harvard grad and involved with Harvard Christian Alumni Society, whose membership spans Catholic/Protestant/Orthodox, but I'd say it leans Protestant in practice. Christian Union is an Ivy League-wide group that spans the 3 major Christian branches also but its leadership is basically Protestant.
Imagine you're a Public Intellectual in America with no current attachment to any religious group, personally or through friends and family. Catholicism, Judaism and LDS are going to be a lot easier for you to explore. They all have consistent, clearly defined doctrines and rituals, with plenty of resources out there explaining them, and they probably have a significant physical presence in the large coastal city or college town where you live. Plus, they'll be around and more or less consistent wherever you're traveling for conferences, speaking tours, and other sundry Public Intellectual work.
It would be a lot more difficult for you to research, say, an anabaptist group, and more difficult still to join one in any meaningful sense, especially if you want to keep doing your Public Intellectual job.
But even assuming you rule out anabaptist Christianity from the get-go, how do you even figure out where to start with protestantism? There's no default protestant church in the u.s. like there is in Britain. There are dozens or hundreds denominations, even more groups and movements within and across denominations. How much of your religious awakening do you really want to spend trying to figure out what actually is an evangelical, or the difference between the free Methodists and the United Methodists, or the LCMS and the ELCA, etc. x100.
I bet that's a big reason.
As far as anti-intellectualism, the robes worn by the clergy are academic rather than ecclesiastical.
As far as aesthetics, Protestants do have J S Bach - not a bad choice for one’s fantasy aesthetics team.
I'm a Liberal who converted to Catholicism notwithstanding that there are a ton of "challenging" Cardle and Convert Catholics -- DeSantis, Cruz, Rubio, Abbott, Bannon, Vance, Vermuele, Deneen -- but we have song about that: "Gentile Jew, Servant or Free, Woman or Man, no more; One Bread one Body." In 2000 years we've had worse.
I guess I'm curious how an intellectual considering a Protestant denomination would grapple with the bible, or even deciding which version of the bible to go with. Assuming they aren't taking it literally there still are many questions. Who wrote it and why? Does have divine significance? How do you view the old testament? Even if the bible is taken as allegory, there is a lot to unpack. There are a lot of odd things in the bible, it's a big book!
I just learned about 2 Kings 2:23-24 - where small kids taunt a bald man and, it seems implied, the lord sends two bears to maul and kill these kids. Even if you don't take that as a historical event, does it make sense as an allegory? What does someone take away from it?
I find it unusual that if you were to talk to the average American Christian, and I'm assuming this is the most important book in their life (perhaps I'm wrong on that), they would not be familiar with these more obscure stories (IMO and in my experience). I understand it's a big book, but if I had not just a favorite book, but the most important book to my religion, I would try to know even the obscure stories in it.
The word for maul does not mean kill.
Second, the problem was not that the kids called him "baldy." It is the overlooked beginning of their taunt: "Go up!" They are denying his story of Elijah ascending to heaven, the basis of Elisha's office of prophet, passed on to him by Elijah. The implication is that Elisha is a liar at best, a murderer at worst.
By sending the scratched-up boys back to town, alive, to tell their story, the prophetic words of Elisha are confirmed, and the populace more willing to listen to him. That result is far more important than avenging an insult about his lack of hair, which, as you and many readers intuit, is not much of a motivation for a divine intervention.
Some versions of the bible, from what I gather, say "go up" (KJV) as you mention - but others like New International Version say something else "Get out of here, Baldy." So if interpretations are hinging on specific words, it seems really important which bible you pick, and I'd be curious how an intellectuals coming fresh to Protestantism approaches that choice. The KJV I'm looking at says "tare" instead of maul.
This story is only a few lines, but there are still more questions. It's unclear how many "little boys" taunted this bald man, but it seems more clear that the bears (some versions identify them as "she bears" - I'm curious why the bear's sex was noteworthy to the author?) maul or tare 42 boys. Did all 42 boys mock this man, or were some mauled simply due to association with the boys who were doing the mocking?
And if, reading between the lines, that these taunts are not about the man's actual baldness but about these kids denying something larger - why does god choose this way to get people to listen to the word of elisha? God sometimes appears in the old testament and simply tells people things. Why have two female bears maul 42 small children when you could just tell people something directly?
If you are an intellectual who is accustomed to interrogating and being critical of nearly every sentence you read, approaching the bible (whichever one you choose) I think would be quite daunting given the incredible amount of your time needed to not only read each word, but to really understand the historical context, translation issues, and subtleties of stories like 2 Kings 2:23-24 and countless others in the old and new testament.
The NIV translation is a poor one for Bible study, because it is interpretive and paraphrastic in so many places, including this one. The Hebrew word 'alah means "ascend" and can be used intransitively ("be high up") or actively ("mount", etc.). The root meaning of ascend is totally lost in the NIV.
God could choose to validate Elisha's words with a positive miracle, as he did later in several instances. Maybe God acted in this way because the boys were blasphemous and deserved punishment, and we are just a bunch of modern wussies who have a problem with the concept of corporal punishment.
As to your last paragraph, the same would be true if you approached every sentence of any work with skepticism, e.g. reading Greek and Roman historians. But the extreme skepticism seems to be reserved for the Bible. That speaks to prejudices rather than intellectualism.
I agree that skepticism should be applied equally to any endeavor, not just the bible. As for 'extreme skepticism', my view is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you tell me you saw your local city councilmember at the grocery store, I'm going to believe you without asking for proof. But you say you saw Elvis or a divine miracle performed, my standard of proof would be significantly higher. The bible, is of course, full of extraordinary claims, the time period of which is thousands of years ago.
As for modern tastes, you could say that about any number of things the bible views differently than some of us do today. The bible does not consistently and unambiguously say that slavery is wrong and evil. God also seems to get mad at the humans he brought into existence, kills nearly all of humanity (and most animals) in a flood, and then say he won't do it again. God could certainly create humans, and then send two female bears to maul small children for not honoring him or his prophets properly to teach people a lesson. But I could see why intellectuals might not want to be drawn to spending their time and energy studying these texts under the Protestant denomination.
"[N]oting that intellectuals who convert to a religion — of whom there are increasingly many — rarely end up as Protestants."
Is this true? What are examples, other than Ayaan? I would expect the level of religious conversion to track pretty closely with the popularity of religion in general. There are probably more atheist-to-religious conversions now than in the past, but this could be for the trivial arithmetical reason that there are more atheists...
This isn’t a complete answer, but I find in my own experience, as an American, that the idea of converting to Catholicism is utterly bizarre to non-intellectuals who are not themselves devout Catholics. This is true whether they are devout Protestants or lapsed Protestants or Catholics.
This came up because I was exploring the idea of converting to Catholicism for a long time and discussed it with people in all of these groups. They all acted like I was contemplating getting a face tattoo. This includes a guy who actually goes to Mass every week for his wife but is personally more or less a moralistic therapeutic deist. He told me that I ought to be able to at least find a church not run by a “gay mafia.”
There’s something very ordinary about an American finding religion and attending a Protestant church, which for an intellectual increases the appeal of counter-signaling, doing the extraordinary thing and joining the RCC (or, increasingly, EO).