Whatever his reasons for becoming Catholic, I'm pleased he found a faith community that's a good fit for him and his family (I'm assuming he's raising his kids in the faith, too).
Yes, as it was with Vance, I would agree that Young Earth Creationism is a huge obstacle for many intellectually-inclined evangelicals. The sticking point, of course, is YEC's equating the Young Earth position with Biblical inerrancy, but I think there's a lot more room for disagreement on that point.
My PCA church is pretty heavily YEC; I'm not (though I believe in Biblical inerrancy), but it's not a battle I want to fight anytime soon. Still, we need better outlets for discourse with folks who are struggling over the issue.
If anything, when the Big Bang was discovered, a lot of people (including the Pope) rejoiced that it was evidence FOR theism, if not for a literal interpretation of Genesis.
Yeah - good point. I think historically the idea that creation reveals God's attributes (Romans 1:20) was the foundation of science in the first place, and why it emerged in the Christian West but not elsewhere.
Good thoughts as usual, and good quick survey of Vance's arc.
One of the biggest voices in Evan. activism from last 50 years - Chuck Colson
was greatly influenced by his Catholic wife.
The RCC seems to have perfected that blend of church and state in the US - melding
the two cities of Augustine.
The Evans. in contrast have been most focused on building local communities, either
denominationally or independently - diffusing any real corporate impact. IMO this is
right - and the RCC goes wrong.
In doing so, Evans. forfeit the kind of big-picture political and even social impact many of
their leaders seem to hunger for.
So the very thin to no Evan. presence at RNC would seem to support this evolutionary direction - so Vance and Trump are packaged as populists without carrying any of the real issues that motivate Conserv. Evans.
Now thoughtful Evans. really have a big choice to make - Bush 43 had the Evan. vote, but now can they go for DT 47? Prog. Evan. constantly snipe at DT and Conserv. Evans. and have long made their peace with DEMs, so will they have to lock-step vote for whoever emerges at the DNC?
Much of the Christian anti-intellectualism comes directly from the apostasy of the intellectuals and their betrayal of the common man in hundreds of ways. While this is a problem when it calcifies or mixes with sinful pride, it is also to a large extent a rational response.
You nailed, in the main, the anti-intellectualism of most churches today. I've just (yet again) left a church becaues the pastor told me intellectual discussion belongs in the classroom rather than the church--"being too intellectual causes division." I've now been through five large'ish churches in my area (Knoxville) where the pastors openly say intellectual excellence is not welcome.
The other side, however, is just as bad--mocking YEC because "science says." This is: "intellectuals say x, I want to be intellectual, so I must also say x." We've created a false dichotomy. Satan loves false dichotomies (exhibit A: Genesis 2). Either we must believe atheistic intellectuals and be intellectual, or we must denigrate intellectual exellence. You've identified one side of the false dichotomy and fallen into the other. There are ditches on both sides of the road, not just one.
A case in point: evolution. Mocking YEC invariably goes with a strong belief that "science has proven evolution." There is a lot of magic here, like: "because there is variation within a species, it must also be possible for evolution to produce multiple species from a single species. Doesn't the existence of some change prove change is unlimited?" What, in our experience of the world, would convince us such a thing is true? There is also a lot of circular reasoning, like: "I can line these fossils up to prove evolution, so evolution is true."
What I can tell you, as an engineer who's studied evolution for many years, is this: evolution exists at some level, but it's much more limited and preprogrammed into organisms than the popular press would ever like to admit. In fact, if you paid the least bit of attention to recent scientific papers in the realm of evolution, you would find the design argument is completely overrunning the field. Instead of arguing "there is no design," the argument is now either "we will assume this looks like design, even though we don't think it is, and leave the proving of a lack of design to someone else," or "panpsychism!" The change may never leak from current science to the popular press, but the Discovery Institute, like it or not, has won the argument on design.
Of course God "could create via evolution"--but to accept this is to attack the very character of God from a theological perspective. It might sound like a good intellectual escape hatch, but I'm not certain how that's going to work out for you in the long run.
There are mediating positions here, but we refuse to look at them because we either want to appear intellectual or appear to be common. It's all about seeking appearances (or "unity," which is just a code word for "I want to build a big church!"), rather than seeking truth. A lot of times, we just don't want to have the intellectual humility to say, "I have some thoughts, and I can support those thoughts with well-formed arguments ... but I might be wrong."
There is scientific evidence for an old universe. There are solid reasons to doubt that evidence. There are reasons to think the Earth might be younger than the universe. There are reasons to think life is much younger than the Earth. There are reasons to hold evolution cannot originate life itself, nor can it produce speciation. There are very strong reasons to hold life is designed. There are very strong reasons to hold the first couple of chapters of Genesis are literal records of what actually happened. I have enough intellectual humility to know there are many things no-one knows, and won't ever know this side of the new heavens and new earth. I have enough confidence in the character and person of God to say: "it probably doesn't matter as much as we think it does."
Seeking truth and finding community at the same time in Laodecia is hard. I cannot find a community interested in seeking truth, so I largely end up living without community right now.
I am an Old Earth Creationist, and certainly don't believe "science has proven evolution." Then again, I don't mock YEC. I used to be YEC in younger years, and mocking is not a good Christian behavior towards my fellow Christians.
I grew up in a YEC, non-denominational, dispensationalist church. But eventually as I went into science I had to make my peace with the non-YEC position in order to remain in the faith. It helped that God gave me a legitimate miracle to save my faith in a time of struggling with doubts. But even today, if I talk to people at conferences and mention my church activities, I do occasionally get quizzed to see if I am one of "those people" so I do get Vance's trajectory, especially since he was at Yale. I don't agree that Protestantism is lacking intellectuals so much as that the intellectuals within Protestantism are dispersed among so many different denominations and institutions that they punch well below their weight. Catholics have an entire network of intellectuals at multiple institutions. Mormons have one entire institution that produces their intellectuals and than exports them by encouraging them to aim for others, so I think you are right on with the "striver" category.
I guess there is one other issue in that even the Protestant churches that are not YEC tend to take a "big tent" approach and don't focus on it. I'm comfortably in an evangelical church that has no problem with evolution or the Big Bang, but we have plenty of YEC folks attending as well. They are brothers in Christ even if we disagree but folks "striving" for elite society probably wouldn't be comfortable in that situation.
I lived in Cambridge for a decade and went to Harvard Divinity School--people who know me know that much. What they don't know is that some of my biggest supporters are Catholics like Patrick Deneen. Speaking of Harvard and Patrick I recall a time when Patrick was lecturing at Harvard to an audience of about 500 people; he spotted me in the crowd. He stopped his lecture, pointed at me and said, "That's C. R. Wiley over there. You need to get his latest book, 'Man of the House'." That's the support I get from Catholic intellectuals like Deneen, Tony Esolen, Brad Birzer, and Mark Bauerlein. Know how many people in my denomination do that sort of thing? A couple--and that's about it. Most people in the PCA are middle-brow, middle-management. They're people who don't take risks intellectually or otherwise. If all there was to it is intellectual kinship I would have left evangelicalism long ago.
I wrestle with the point about YEC a lot. The greatest strength of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches is that they have this inbuilt inertia that makes them very slow to reject historic doctrines, while still having the freedom to leave some matters up for debate. It's the single best thing about those churches and what widens the appeal so much to intellectuals: the counterbalance between authoritative doctrines and matters left up for debate.
Unfortunately I don't think there is any way we'll ever have that within Protestantism. I'm not entirely sure how we can even do much better.
There's this wariness in conservative churches that caving on any point regarding the literal truth of Scripture -- and perhaps even regarding Reformed doctrines -- means the whole structure can no longer be defended. And maybe it's sort of true! Those of us who are "liberals" on the matter of Creation (and perhaps Genesis 1-11 more broadly) are just as wary as the YEC crowd on any other signs of liberal drift. I therefore don't necessarily blame the YEC crowd for their wariness, because I don't really know how to resolve this tension.
I find you including Mormons along with Catholics to be a fascinating example. To my knowledge, very few evangelicals convert to Mormonism, and Mormon apologetics is much harder to pull off to an outsider, as there is plenty of archeological evidence for the Bible, but the claims the Book of Mormon makes about there having been ancient tribes in the Americas that fought all those battles has essentially zero archeological proof. The Book of Mormon also has characters riding horses, despite the fact that there is no archeological evidence that horses were in the Americas prior to Spanish colonization.
What Mormons do have, though, is a strong striver mentality, a willingness to debate and be all-around nice people, and a very strong church structure, all of which help it maintain a presence in elite circles.
Vance is the one who mentioned Mormons. But a friend of mine who went to Harvard Law also talked about Mormons and Catholics there.
Mormons never really talk about their theology, in my experience. What they talk about is their community. And as you say, they are very culturally aligned with the striver mentality.
Thanks for the clarification. I assume that Vance has read his mentor at Yale Law Amy Chua’s book The Triple Package, which argues that Mormons (along with East Asians, Jews, Cubans, Nigerians, etc.) have the “triple package” of traits that make them unusually successful. I think many denominations could learn from how the LDS Church operates (minus their theology).
Having grown up in the milieu of what our friends at Davenant Institute call magisterial Protestantism, I couldn’t help but noticing that if you replaced every mention of Catholicism in it with conservative Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism etc., his conversion story would change very little, if at all.
We absolutely need good universities producing top tier intellectuals again.
To clarify a bit: I am writing from a European perspective where the prevalence of YEC is not that big in the conservative branches of the churches I mentioned. I’m not saying this in a disparaging way but simply as an observation. YEC as a repellent for strivers has not been such a big issue here.
For instance, in Finland there has been a small stream of Pentecostal young intellectuals converting to Lutheranism -and not the liberal version- at least from the 80s. With the slow decline of robust Lutheran academic theology and its consequences in the national church, this stream has dried up. Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy draw people now here as well.
Aaron, just as an aside, you mentioned that the PCA, whether it is the most intellectual evangelical denomination, has a strong, foregrounded YEC contingent. It’s interesting that the PCA, just a few decades ago, speedran a study committee with the basic intent that failure to accept YEC does makes you a theological liberal (https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1709&context=hon_thesis) Nowadays, I don’t think an issue like confirming YEC, or any sort of offensive action from the denominational “right,” is even on the radar. Now all the energy is spent just defending basic orthodoxy from attacks from the theological left (i.e., Side B, women’s roles in ministry).
High status protestantism within (predominantly conservative) cultural/political elite circles is in the ACNA or it's nowhere. Mostly (as Aaron says) it's nowhere, because the ACNA is small and is often only a few years' stopping point on the way to Catholicism or Orthodoxy. My rough read on the matter is that 'strivers' are more likely to leave for Catholicism; the less ambitious and the BenOp types are more likely to choose Orthodoxy.
But where it does exist-and it certainly exists in DC, at Hillsdale (I believe Hillsdale's official chaplain is an ACNA priest?), and as the liturgical upper crust at intellectual evangelical colleges like Wheaton-Anglicanism fills a felt need for beauty and intellectual rigor.
A personal curiosity of mine, every time I read one of these posts where the author just ever so slightly grouses at Catholic dominance of intellectual conservatism (e.g. harping on conversion as career signalling)- has Aaron ever shared his reasons for not being Catholic?
*Edited to remove a further question that was uncharitably phrased
The Church of England contains a small subset of churches that are very conservative and theology-intensive. Some of these churches thrive in places such as London, Oxford, and Cambridge. They're associated with high-profile pastor/theologians such as John Stott and J I Packer, and they also provide, to some degree, I think, that balance between beauty and intellectual rigor you mention. Crucially (as my nom de web might suggest) they are Calvinistic in their theology.
I was about to edit to clarify that I'm not accusing- I just pick up a certain tone from time to time. Could be me.
I would certainly understand from my ACNA perspective a bit of a frustration from 'the one who remains' towards those who leave for what they see as greener pastures
In my experience, the most negative people are those who left something towards the things that they left. Some of my family left the Catholic church to become Pentecostals, and they have way more negativity towards the Catholic church than I do.
I agree that's the case, especially in the short-medium term after their leaving. Further out than that nostalgia might break through, depending on the person.
I do apologize for evidently over reading a sentiment that wasn't there!
"He explicitly sees religion through the lens of socio-economic status. Once he saw that it was possible to be Christian in the world of the elites, it became interesting and credible to him again."
I've been here, nowhere near the success of Vance... but I did leave a Pentecostal home to go join the Marines and then while not apostatizing... just didn't participate in my faith... didn't even realize I didn't bring my Bible. After I left the Marines, I went searching on why raised by a good Bible believing, prayerful father how I could coast so far. Eventually, I met my wife and found my way into Roman Catholicism. If you asked me several years ago how I felt about evangelicals, I would probably feel the same way you conclude Vance does. I was big into apologetics, how faith, reason, and science can all get along. There were already a few cracks in that armor by that point though. COVID was the final nail in the coffin, but before that I always remember the time I was in deep fear over my wife's second pregnancy and distraught with worry. My father, who rarely went to his Church, but reads the Bible constantly, and prays fervently comes up to me and asks me to trust in the Lord, asks me if I trust him and I remember tearfully admitting that despite my new intellectually awesome Catholic faith that I did in fact not trust Him to protect my wife. All the apologetics, council knowledge, trendy trad culture seemed like Saint Aquinas' 'all is straw' statement. It was an enlightening moment. Evangelicals that think they have nothing in common or to offer higher liturgical traditions are wrong.
I've been warning newer and mostly younger Catholics similar to J.D. Vance that choosing this because it's the cooler, smarter Christianity is going to lead to either a dead end or some roadblocks. Eastern Christianity seems to have a handle on this really well, and people like Fr. Hezekias Carnazzo will tell you Roman Catholicism has a real horse before the cart problem. I think some Roman trads are a bit more aware, but we have to remember our God is one of the supernatural and is a mystical faith that involves communication, prayer, and trust. Not just the practice... but the practice of putting our faith in action. I'm hoping Vance will hit this point during his tenure as VP. I'm really worried how the current GOP is posturing away from the culture wars.
"All the apologetics, council knowledge, trendy trad culture seemed like Saint Aquinas' 'all is straw' statement. It was an enlightening moment."
This the key to understanding Aquinas. That tower of intellectualism is not an end in itself but a supporting structure that points to something more deeper and profound. And it's that "profound thing" that is the mark of Christianity. The simple evangelical store clerk who has grasped the "thing" is closer to God than the intellectual Catholic without it. Note, intellect and the the "thing" are not in opposition, instead intellect is meant to work in harmony with the thing to support it and allow it to grow in the individual.
One of the things about Vichy France was that many of the best Catholic intellectuals supported the Vichy regime, but their faith seemed more intellectual and they subordinated the "thing" to the intellect. Other intellects,like Yves Simon, did not make the mistake. They grasped the "thing" and used their intellect to support it, thereby repudiating the Vichy regime.
De Gaulle was a great example of a man who had the "thing" and the intellect. He was opposed by Catholicism's most brilliant theologian of the time, Garrigou-Lagrange who was very sympathetic to Vichy. De Gaulle's first supporters were a rag tag bunch of misfits and "deplorables". It was the lower caste Catholics, the simpletons, who got it right.
Thanks for a great comment. I need to go back and read in detail but I cringed a little at the "well I can maybe do Catholicism and still be Mister Businessman" because, hun, you're pointed in the right direction but you still don't get it. Conversion means an entire reframing of your values priorities and worldview, without exception or reservation, and a true conversion doesn't mean that you cram this belief system into your existing concept of yourself. You release the ego and the plans and the self-definition and the social concerns and the career ambitions and all the rest of it. You let the Holy Spirit lead you to the truth and The Truth through the word and The Word and then on the other side of that you build back how he wants you to be.
I didn't understand this myself until fairly recently and I'm not judging.
As someone for whom the intellectual coherence of young earth apologetics arguments substantially strengthens my faith, I'm always disappointed when Christians don't bother to actually engage the arguments before rejecting them.
Christian apologetic organizations compellingly explain the history and science to everyone from toddlers to PhDs, but if you're not even willing to hear solid Biblical and scientific arguments because your elite status looks down on the low-class believers who treat it seriously, you may want to reconsider your priorities (Matthew 19:16)
I’m pretty well convinced of the Young Earth position, and not only for Biblical reasons. But even if that is how the Bible is to be understood, we mustn’t confuse our interpretation with the faithfulness to the Bible itself.
I’d commend to your attention this discussion between Ken Ham, of Answers in Genesis, and my friend Richard Howe, of Southern Evangelical Seminary, about the philosophical assumptions involved.
But this is not a Young Earth/Old Earth debate, Richard is himself a Young Earth guy:
I wholeheartedly agree. When I became a Christian, I strongly believed that the earth and the universe were billions of years old. What God pointed me to was not YEC organizations, but the secular scientific literature as well as those Christian organizations who said they were faithful to the Scriptures but believed that the universe and the earth was old. Yet as I studied the supposed science, I found innumerable contradictions, assumptions and outright falsehoods. That's when I started researching YEC organizations as well as the ID movement.
What I also found out that those Christian organizations that tried to split the proverbial baby in half where very interested - like Vance and I guess Aaron - in being accepted by the intellectual elite. I would wager that they have never done the research into the secular science and those scientists and organizations that hold to a YEC. It is much easier to wave your hand and say the science says this is true by reading the headlines.
I would recommend that individuals read Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" written back in 1962 where he coined the phrase "paradigm shift". There is a paradigm shift emerging in the fields of cosmology, biology, physics as well as other scientific fields. And the intellectuals who are hanging on to evolution and an old universe are going to be left in the dustbin of history,
Indeed. The false choice of "science vs Biblical Christianity" is one that deserves more skepticism from thinking Christians. There are ample, accessible resources for anyone interested. In addition to Answers in Genesis, there is Institute for Creation Research (https://www.icr.org/), staffed with highly competent scientists who make no compromises in reconciling YEC and science.
I can relate as well, shameless plug for https://kolbecenter.org/ for Catholics. I am at least to the point of questioning the evolutionary narratives about man.
Whatever his reasons for becoming Catholic, I'm pleased he found a faith community that's a good fit for him and his family (I'm assuming he's raising his kids in the faith, too).
Interesting shot at YEC. Wait till Renn finds out what “scientific findings” say about a man rising from the dead…
Yes, as it was with Vance, I would agree that Young Earth Creationism is a huge obstacle for many intellectually-inclined evangelicals. The sticking point, of course, is YEC's equating the Young Earth position with Biblical inerrancy, but I think there's a lot more room for disagreement on that point.
My PCA church is pretty heavily YEC; I'm not (though I believe in Biblical inerrancy), but it's not a battle I want to fight anytime soon. Still, we need better outlets for discourse with folks who are struggling over the issue.
If anything, when the Big Bang was discovered, a lot of people (including the Pope) rejoiced that it was evidence FOR theism, if not for a literal interpretation of Genesis.
Yeah - good point. I think historically the idea that creation reveals God's attributes (Romans 1:20) was the foundation of science in the first place, and why it emerged in the Christian West but not elsewhere.
Good thoughts as usual, and good quick survey of Vance's arc.
One of the biggest voices in Evan. activism from last 50 years - Chuck Colson
was greatly influenced by his Catholic wife.
The RCC seems to have perfected that blend of church and state in the US - melding
the two cities of Augustine.
The Evans. in contrast have been most focused on building local communities, either
denominationally or independently - diffusing any real corporate impact. IMO this is
right - and the RCC goes wrong.
In doing so, Evans. forfeit the kind of big-picture political and even social impact many of
their leaders seem to hunger for.
So the very thin to no Evan. presence at RNC would seem to support this evolutionary direction - so Vance and Trump are packaged as populists without carrying any of the real issues that motivate Conserv. Evans.
Now thoughtful Evans. really have a big choice to make - Bush 43 had the Evan. vote, but now can they go for DT 47? Prog. Evan. constantly snipe at DT and Conserv. Evans. and have long made their peace with DEMs, so will they have to lock-step vote for whoever emerges at the DNC?
Much of the Christian anti-intellectualism comes directly from the apostasy of the intellectuals and their betrayal of the common man in hundreds of ways. While this is a problem when it calcifies or mixes with sinful pride, it is also to a large extent a rational response.
As always, I agree, but I disagree ...
You nailed, in the main, the anti-intellectualism of most churches today. I've just (yet again) left a church becaues the pastor told me intellectual discussion belongs in the classroom rather than the church--"being too intellectual causes division." I've now been through five large'ish churches in my area (Knoxville) where the pastors openly say intellectual excellence is not welcome.
The other side, however, is just as bad--mocking YEC because "science says." This is: "intellectuals say x, I want to be intellectual, so I must also say x." We've created a false dichotomy. Satan loves false dichotomies (exhibit A: Genesis 2). Either we must believe atheistic intellectuals and be intellectual, or we must denigrate intellectual exellence. You've identified one side of the false dichotomy and fallen into the other. There are ditches on both sides of the road, not just one.
A case in point: evolution. Mocking YEC invariably goes with a strong belief that "science has proven evolution." There is a lot of magic here, like: "because there is variation within a species, it must also be possible for evolution to produce multiple species from a single species. Doesn't the existence of some change prove change is unlimited?" What, in our experience of the world, would convince us such a thing is true? There is also a lot of circular reasoning, like: "I can line these fossils up to prove evolution, so evolution is true."
What I can tell you, as an engineer who's studied evolution for many years, is this: evolution exists at some level, but it's much more limited and preprogrammed into organisms than the popular press would ever like to admit. In fact, if you paid the least bit of attention to recent scientific papers in the realm of evolution, you would find the design argument is completely overrunning the field. Instead of arguing "there is no design," the argument is now either "we will assume this looks like design, even though we don't think it is, and leave the proving of a lack of design to someone else," or "panpsychism!" The change may never leak from current science to the popular press, but the Discovery Institute, like it or not, has won the argument on design.
Of course God "could create via evolution"--but to accept this is to attack the very character of God from a theological perspective. It might sound like a good intellectual escape hatch, but I'm not certain how that's going to work out for you in the long run.
There are mediating positions here, but we refuse to look at them because we either want to appear intellectual or appear to be common. It's all about seeking appearances (or "unity," which is just a code word for "I want to build a big church!"), rather than seeking truth. A lot of times, we just don't want to have the intellectual humility to say, "I have some thoughts, and I can support those thoughts with well-formed arguments ... but I might be wrong."
There is scientific evidence for an old universe. There are solid reasons to doubt that evidence. There are reasons to think the Earth might be younger than the universe. There are reasons to think life is much younger than the Earth. There are reasons to hold evolution cannot originate life itself, nor can it produce speciation. There are very strong reasons to hold life is designed. There are very strong reasons to hold the first couple of chapters of Genesis are literal records of what actually happened. I have enough intellectual humility to know there are many things no-one knows, and won't ever know this side of the new heavens and new earth. I have enough confidence in the character and person of God to say: "it probably doesn't matter as much as we think it does."
Seeking truth and finding community at the same time in Laodecia is hard. I cannot find a community interested in seeking truth, so I largely end up living without community right now.
I am an Old Earth Creationist, and certainly don't believe "science has proven evolution." Then again, I don't mock YEC. I used to be YEC in younger years, and mocking is not a good Christian behavior towards my fellow Christians.
There are old earth/young life options, but they are largely unexamined/unconsidered in the wider Christian world.
I grew up in a YEC, non-denominational, dispensationalist church. But eventually as I went into science I had to make my peace with the non-YEC position in order to remain in the faith. It helped that God gave me a legitimate miracle to save my faith in a time of struggling with doubts. But even today, if I talk to people at conferences and mention my church activities, I do occasionally get quizzed to see if I am one of "those people" so I do get Vance's trajectory, especially since he was at Yale. I don't agree that Protestantism is lacking intellectuals so much as that the intellectuals within Protestantism are dispersed among so many different denominations and institutions that they punch well below their weight. Catholics have an entire network of intellectuals at multiple institutions. Mormons have one entire institution that produces their intellectuals and than exports them by encouraging them to aim for others, so I think you are right on with the "striver" category.
I guess there is one other issue in that even the Protestant churches that are not YEC tend to take a "big tent" approach and don't focus on it. I'm comfortably in an evangelical church that has no problem with evolution or the Big Bang, but we have plenty of YEC folks attending as well. They are brothers in Christ even if we disagree but folks "striving" for elite society probably wouldn't be comfortable in that situation.
I cringe at the frequent association of the Big Bang with evolution. Nothing at all to do with each other.
I lived in Cambridge for a decade and went to Harvard Divinity School--people who know me know that much. What they don't know is that some of my biggest supporters are Catholics like Patrick Deneen. Speaking of Harvard and Patrick I recall a time when Patrick was lecturing at Harvard to an audience of about 500 people; he spotted me in the crowd. He stopped his lecture, pointed at me and said, "That's C. R. Wiley over there. You need to get his latest book, 'Man of the House'." That's the support I get from Catholic intellectuals like Deneen, Tony Esolen, Brad Birzer, and Mark Bauerlein. Know how many people in my denomination do that sort of thing? A couple--and that's about it. Most people in the PCA are middle-brow, middle-management. They're people who don't take risks intellectually or otherwise. If all there was to it is intellectual kinship I would have left evangelicalism long ago.
I wrestle with the point about YEC a lot. The greatest strength of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches is that they have this inbuilt inertia that makes them very slow to reject historic doctrines, while still having the freedom to leave some matters up for debate. It's the single best thing about those churches and what widens the appeal so much to intellectuals: the counterbalance between authoritative doctrines and matters left up for debate.
Unfortunately I don't think there is any way we'll ever have that within Protestantism. I'm not entirely sure how we can even do much better.
There's this wariness in conservative churches that caving on any point regarding the literal truth of Scripture -- and perhaps even regarding Reformed doctrines -- means the whole structure can no longer be defended. And maybe it's sort of true! Those of us who are "liberals" on the matter of Creation (and perhaps Genesis 1-11 more broadly) are just as wary as the YEC crowd on any other signs of liberal drift. I therefore don't necessarily blame the YEC crowd for their wariness, because I don't really know how to resolve this tension.
I find you including Mormons along with Catholics to be a fascinating example. To my knowledge, very few evangelicals convert to Mormonism, and Mormon apologetics is much harder to pull off to an outsider, as there is plenty of archeological evidence for the Bible, but the claims the Book of Mormon makes about there having been ancient tribes in the Americas that fought all those battles has essentially zero archeological proof. The Book of Mormon also has characters riding horses, despite the fact that there is no archeological evidence that horses were in the Americas prior to Spanish colonization.
What Mormons do have, though, is a strong striver mentality, a willingness to debate and be all-around nice people, and a very strong church structure, all of which help it maintain a presence in elite circles.
Vance is the one who mentioned Mormons. But a friend of mine who went to Harvard Law also talked about Mormons and Catholics there.
Mormons never really talk about their theology, in my experience. What they talk about is their community. And as you say, they are very culturally aligned with the striver mentality.
Thanks for the clarification. I assume that Vance has read his mentor at Yale Law Amy Chua’s book The Triple Package, which argues that Mormons (along with East Asians, Jews, Cubans, Nigerians, etc.) have the “triple package” of traits that make them unusually successful. I think many denominations could learn from how the LDS Church operates (minus their theology).
Vance explains some of his reasons and experiences for Catholicism in an essay from 2020 here:
https://thelampmagazine.com/blog/how-i-joined-the-resistance
Having grown up in the milieu of what our friends at Davenant Institute call magisterial Protestantism, I couldn’t help but noticing that if you replaced every mention of Catholicism in it with conservative Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism etc., his conversion story would change very little, if at all.
We absolutely need good universities producing top tier intellectuals again.
To clarify a bit: I am writing from a European perspective where the prevalence of YEC is not that big in the conservative branches of the churches I mentioned. I’m not saying this in a disparaging way but simply as an observation. YEC as a repellent for strivers has not been such a big issue here.
For instance, in Finland there has been a small stream of Pentecostal young intellectuals converting to Lutheranism -and not the liberal version- at least from the 80s. With the slow decline of robust Lutheran academic theology and its consequences in the national church, this stream has dried up. Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy draw people now here as well.
Aaron, just as an aside, you mentioned that the PCA, whether it is the most intellectual evangelical denomination, has a strong, foregrounded YEC contingent. It’s interesting that the PCA, just a few decades ago, speedran a study committee with the basic intent that failure to accept YEC does makes you a theological liberal (https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1709&context=hon_thesis) Nowadays, I don’t think an issue like confirming YEC, or any sort of offensive action from the denominational “right,” is even on the radar. Now all the energy is spent just defending basic orthodoxy from attacks from the theological left (i.e., Side B, women’s roles in ministry).
High status protestantism within (predominantly conservative) cultural/political elite circles is in the ACNA or it's nowhere. Mostly (as Aaron says) it's nowhere, because the ACNA is small and is often only a few years' stopping point on the way to Catholicism or Orthodoxy. My rough read on the matter is that 'strivers' are more likely to leave for Catholicism; the less ambitious and the BenOp types are more likely to choose Orthodoxy.
But where it does exist-and it certainly exists in DC, at Hillsdale (I believe Hillsdale's official chaplain is an ACNA priest?), and as the liturgical upper crust at intellectual evangelical colleges like Wheaton-Anglicanism fills a felt need for beauty and intellectual rigor.
A personal curiosity of mine, every time I read one of these posts where the author just ever so slightly grouses at Catholic dominance of intellectual conservatism (e.g. harping on conversion as career signalling)- has Aaron ever shared his reasons for not being Catholic?
*Edited to remove a further question that was uncharitably phrased
The Church of England contains a small subset of churches that are very conservative and theology-intensive. Some of these churches thrive in places such as London, Oxford, and Cambridge. They're associated with high-profile pastor/theologians such as John Stott and J I Packer, and they also provide, to some degree, I think, that balance between beauty and intellectual rigor you mention. Crucially (as my nom de web might suggest) they are Calvinistic in their theology.
Actually, this article basically is positive towards Catholics, so I don't know what you are saying. Evangelicals could learn from them.
I'm Protestant because I was raised that way, most likely. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.
I was about to edit to clarify that I'm not accusing- I just pick up a certain tone from time to time. Could be me.
I would certainly understand from my ACNA perspective a bit of a frustration from 'the one who remains' towards those who leave for what they see as greener pastures
In my experience, the most negative people are those who left something towards the things that they left. Some of my family left the Catholic church to become Pentecostals, and they have way more negativity towards the Catholic church than I do.
I agree that's the case, especially in the short-medium term after their leaving. Further out than that nostalgia might break through, depending on the person.
I do apologize for evidently over reading a sentiment that wasn't there!
No problem - I was just a bit confused.
I hope you don't mind me sharing...
"He explicitly sees religion through the lens of socio-economic status. Once he saw that it was possible to be Christian in the world of the elites, it became interesting and credible to him again."
I've been here, nowhere near the success of Vance... but I did leave a Pentecostal home to go join the Marines and then while not apostatizing... just didn't participate in my faith... didn't even realize I didn't bring my Bible. After I left the Marines, I went searching on why raised by a good Bible believing, prayerful father how I could coast so far. Eventually, I met my wife and found my way into Roman Catholicism. If you asked me several years ago how I felt about evangelicals, I would probably feel the same way you conclude Vance does. I was big into apologetics, how faith, reason, and science can all get along. There were already a few cracks in that armor by that point though. COVID was the final nail in the coffin, but before that I always remember the time I was in deep fear over my wife's second pregnancy and distraught with worry. My father, who rarely went to his Church, but reads the Bible constantly, and prays fervently comes up to me and asks me to trust in the Lord, asks me if I trust him and I remember tearfully admitting that despite my new intellectually awesome Catholic faith that I did in fact not trust Him to protect my wife. All the apologetics, council knowledge, trendy trad culture seemed like Saint Aquinas' 'all is straw' statement. It was an enlightening moment. Evangelicals that think they have nothing in common or to offer higher liturgical traditions are wrong.
I've been warning newer and mostly younger Catholics similar to J.D. Vance that choosing this because it's the cooler, smarter Christianity is going to lead to either a dead end or some roadblocks. Eastern Christianity seems to have a handle on this really well, and people like Fr. Hezekias Carnazzo will tell you Roman Catholicism has a real horse before the cart problem. I think some Roman trads are a bit more aware, but we have to remember our God is one of the supernatural and is a mystical faith that involves communication, prayer, and trust. Not just the practice... but the practice of putting our faith in action. I'm hoping Vance will hit this point during his tenure as VP. I'm really worried how the current GOP is posturing away from the culture wars.
Brilliant comment.
"All the apologetics, council knowledge, trendy trad culture seemed like Saint Aquinas' 'all is straw' statement. It was an enlightening moment."
This the key to understanding Aquinas. That tower of intellectualism is not an end in itself but a supporting structure that points to something more deeper and profound. And it's that "profound thing" that is the mark of Christianity. The simple evangelical store clerk who has grasped the "thing" is closer to God than the intellectual Catholic without it. Note, intellect and the the "thing" are not in opposition, instead intellect is meant to work in harmony with the thing to support it and allow it to grow in the individual.
One of the things about Vichy France was that many of the best Catholic intellectuals supported the Vichy regime, but their faith seemed more intellectual and they subordinated the "thing" to the intellect. Other intellects,like Yves Simon, did not make the mistake. They grasped the "thing" and used their intellect to support it, thereby repudiating the Vichy regime.
De Gaulle was a great example of a man who had the "thing" and the intellect. He was opposed by Catholicism's most brilliant theologian of the time, Garrigou-Lagrange who was very sympathetic to Vichy. De Gaulle's first supporters were a rag tag bunch of misfits and "deplorables". It was the lower caste Catholics, the simpletons, who got it right.
Thanks for a great comment. I need to go back and read in detail but I cringed a little at the "well I can maybe do Catholicism and still be Mister Businessman" because, hun, you're pointed in the right direction but you still don't get it. Conversion means an entire reframing of your values priorities and worldview, without exception or reservation, and a true conversion doesn't mean that you cram this belief system into your existing concept of yourself. You release the ego and the plans and the self-definition and the social concerns and the career ambitions and all the rest of it. You let the Holy Spirit lead you to the truth and The Truth through the word and The Word and then on the other side of that you build back how he wants you to be.
I didn't understand this myself until fairly recently and I'm not judging.
As someone for whom the intellectual coherence of young earth apologetics arguments substantially strengthens my faith, I'm always disappointed when Christians don't bother to actually engage the arguments before rejecting them.
Christian apologetic organizations compellingly explain the history and science to everyone from toddlers to PhDs, but if you're not even willing to hear solid Biblical and scientific arguments because your elite status looks down on the low-class believers who treat it seriously, you may want to reconsider your priorities (Matthew 19:16)
https://answersingenesis.org/creationism/old-earth/deep-time-and-churchs-compromise-historical-background/
I’m pretty well convinced of the Young Earth position, and not only for Biblical reasons. But even if that is how the Bible is to be understood, we mustn’t confuse our interpretation with the faithfulness to the Bible itself.
I’d commend to your attention this discussion between Ken Ham, of Answers in Genesis, and my friend Richard Howe, of Southern Evangelical Seminary, about the philosophical assumptions involved.
But this is not a Young Earth/Old Earth debate, Richard is himself a Young Earth guy:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RkE0jfryX0w&t=11s
(65 minutes)
Three-minute sample:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J_YyAx8HF_o&pp=ygURUmljaGFyZCBIb3dlICBoYW0%3D
I wholeheartedly agree. When I became a Christian, I strongly believed that the earth and the universe were billions of years old. What God pointed me to was not YEC organizations, but the secular scientific literature as well as those Christian organizations who said they were faithful to the Scriptures but believed that the universe and the earth was old. Yet as I studied the supposed science, I found innumerable contradictions, assumptions and outright falsehoods. That's when I started researching YEC organizations as well as the ID movement.
What I also found out that those Christian organizations that tried to split the proverbial baby in half where very interested - like Vance and I guess Aaron - in being accepted by the intellectual elite. I would wager that they have never done the research into the secular science and those scientists and organizations that hold to a YEC. It is much easier to wave your hand and say the science says this is true by reading the headlines.
I would recommend that individuals read Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" written back in 1962 where he coined the phrase "paradigm shift". There is a paradigm shift emerging in the fields of cosmology, biology, physics as well as other scientific fields. And the intellectuals who are hanging on to evolution and an old universe are going to be left in the dustbin of history,
Indeed. The false choice of "science vs Biblical Christianity" is one that deserves more skepticism from thinking Christians. There are ample, accessible resources for anyone interested. In addition to Answers in Genesis, there is Institute for Creation Research (https://www.icr.org/), staffed with highly competent scientists who make no compromises in reconciling YEC and science.
I can relate as well, shameless plug for https://kolbecenter.org/ for Catholics. I am at least to the point of questioning the evolutionary narratives about man.