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.
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?
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…
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.
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 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.
"[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.
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?
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…
I converted to Protestantism at age 30 (I became Presbyterian, specifically) so was especially glad to read this. Great post Fergus!
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.
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.
Intellectuals like scaffolding and hierarchy.
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.
"[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).