In Southern California, I sometimes wonder whether Pasadena is derived from Puritan Boston, and the rest of So Cal from Quaker Philadelphia. I haven’t found a way to research this theory.
I wonder why the focus is so much on evangelicalism. Almost all varieties of American Christianity have been influenced by non-Christian cultural factor to a large degree.
Mainline Protestantism might not be emotionalistic/revivalistic, but it certainly has a therapeutic emphasis and certainly does not advocate "sexual puritanism."
American Catholics believe in a cafeteria-style religion that is inimical to historic Roman Catholicism.
I also think it is wrong, in a very important way, to say that evangelicalism has produced a culture that include therapeutic religion, prosperity gospel, etc. Rather, outside cultural forces have infected it and it did not resist very well, a critique of mainline Protestantism and Catholicism (see above). The lack of resistance to non-Christian influence is the battleground issue of American churches.
Therapeutic gospel would do something like show how the Bible helps you navigate elements of daily life - like responsible social media use. Or to make it through the ups and downs of life.
A strict ethic cares a lot about avoiding sin, avoiding excess consumption, would reject things like tattoos, expects very hard work, savings, self-denial, etc. At least, this is one Protestant version.
I tend to think of therapeutic ethics emphasizing feeling and emotional equilibrium and traditional Calvinist ethics emphasizing duty and justice. One is more inward focused and the other is outward or public directed. What they have in common is a very worldly or secular orientation. What is missed sometimes about orthodox, old school Calvinism is the strong rest ethic that went hand in hand with the work ethic.
Maybe the question is, not is Evangelicalism Protestant, but are Calvinists evangelicals? 🤔
While there are of course “Reformed,” i.e. Calvinist Baptists, but at dinner most Baptists, for example don’t go on about the heroes of the Reformation. To the suggestion that they’re not Protestant, many evangelicals might offer that “we’re not trying to be”
To the degree that emotional, revivalist religion undercut serious scholarship over the years this needs remedying, yes, and an excellent start is Nancy Pearcey’s book Total Truth
There were people like the late missiologist Ralph Winter who cared more about the Pietistic Reformation that began with Spener and went through Zinzendorf and Wesley than the original Reformation.
Great topic. I wonder when we lost it. I beg to say it’s been a very long time. My great grandmother was the founding member of a four square church in her community. When I went back to look at the roots of that denomination, it truly made me question Protestantism as a whole. But our great-grand parents did show us that work ethic. Now that our jobs are leaving us, and our religion is being striped down to the nuts and bolts, it is a great time figure this out again. Luther and Calvin may have been great in their day, but we need to back and dig the roots further. And pray. More prayer and less theological exposition. We need a change of heart. Lord help us all.
One caveat to trying to apply Weber to an American context should be the understanding that prior to WWII, few Germans had any interest in America. "Puritan" in Weber's sense is English Puritan and not necessarily New England Puritan. This is the same issue with Heidegger and other Germans of that period. America is seen as an irrelevant side note to European issues. There's little to no awareness by European writers of the Second Great Awakening or other American shifts in religion.
The other thing I'd add is that our analysis of Protestantism can't leave out the wide variety of dissenting movements in Europe from Luther through the French Revolution. Already in Protestantism, especially Calvinist varieties, there is a flourishing of emotionalist, gnostic, and apocalyptic sects throughout Europe. Several months ago, Alexander Dugin posted something on Twitter about Fifth Monarchy and the origin of English universalism and got a lot of ignorant blowback from "respectable" theological accounts, but keep in mind that Fifth Monarchy was the most powerful faction in the New Model Army for a significant portion of the English Civil War.
I've challenged the common categories of "traditions" and their validity before so I'm not going to reiterate that. Given that so many mainstream theologians don't actually care about the writings of the Reformation Fathers except insofar as they can use them to justify present-day political conditions, I wouldn't approach the issue in terms of a "Protestant Tradition" vs. an "Evangelical Tradition." Perhaps the focus should be: why are so many people falling for common errors surrounding emotionalism, volitional gnosticism, and apocalypticism?
Evangelicals aren’t shut out of important institutions because they aren’t interested, they are actively shut out because they are evangelical. In institutions like the military which is still comparatively meritocratic or has been for years, evangelicals do quite well. It’s telling that it took Yale law school for JD Vance, then an atheist, to pivot from the evangelicalism he was raised in to higher status “respectable” Catholicism.
Evangelicals aren’t skeptical of institutions because they’re just the lazy know nothings they’re made out to be but because those institutions have been hostile to them and they were tired of sending their young to college and having them come back heretical or atheist.
Furthermore, RCs and EOs seem to love the high hat about sloppy evangelicals; meanwhile cradle RCs and EOs don’t exactly have a reputation for high ethics, mainline Protestants apostasize like mad, etc. Also the prosperity gospel is overtly rejected by most evangelicals yet it gets thrown in our faces like it’s our fault. The source of the lazy and vicious corruption that plagues historically Catholic countries on the other hand is more of a mystery.
I value many Catholic writers and thinkers and have since I was young. From GKC to Jacques Phillipe, they have been a positive influence so don’t get me wrong. I just know what it’s like to have a 1540 SAT as an evangelical and it be assumed that I’m some unlearned savage by secondary sources only “thinkers”.
They were open to JD Vance’s classmate, so at least once. Again Catholicism is broadly more “respectable” because it’s associated with groups they own and/or court, Hispanics and so on. It’s an ethnic and cultural distinction in practice as well as a religious one.
'Bad Religion' is an excellent book. And indeed it doesn't condemn evangelicalism, but rather various misguided paths that have grown out of the historic Christian faith. In fact, towards the end of the book Douthat singles out Tim Keller for particular praise, as a pastor who combined confessional Christianity with intellectual seriousness and a willingness to engage the culture.
I enjoy your writing. Often, I’m left wanting more.
“ We all, myself included have to be willing to consider that we might have gotten important things wrong,”
Certainly we have gotten some things wrong. We are human.
But which things do you have in mind? Does it collectively matter?
Consumerism rather than asceticism is one you mention. I agree, but am also guilty, albeit less as I age.
Thinking we are in charge and that we might solve things is what concerns me. Some refer to cults of personality. I agree: a church that is about the pastor has likely gone astray. But too much focus on “solving problems” is, I believe also astray.
I’m just a tax law academic and no social science intellectual. But I see my job — and yours — primarily to be part of the harvest. Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. That is number one. What others do or believe is for God to worry about. Ultimately, only one seed of four grew in good soil. That seems to be about right.
My second job — and your’s — is to love my neighbor. Good works flow naturally from the first rule. Be kind. Let the Spirit lead you. You may be called to feed, or to teach, or to farm, or to heal. Do your best. But you do this not for wealth or recognition, but rather that God might use you and your acts to reach one more.
I keep returning to Philippians 3:8. All is rubbish. If it is well with your soul, what does any of this matter? If it is not, surely nothing you see, do, or have matters.
Most people miss the simplicity. Many cause others to stumble. But Jesus used the example of 3/4 not making it. Those are not my numbers. They are His. Why fret that what he said was true then and is true now?
>I haven’t read Bad Religion, but my understanding is that Douthat may have been referring to some specific strains like the prosperity gospel here.
Yes, I think I shared this same comment on your review of Todd's book. First of all, everyone should read Douthat's book, it's good and probably his most complete commentary on the state of the American church, from a man who I'd argue is contemporary America's most visible religious commentator. Second, Todd didn't seem to understand Douthat at all, and based on this comment of his, I kind of doubted that he had even read the book.
Douthat isn't out there saying conservative Southern Baptists and Presbyterians are out there promulgating "heresies with no real connection to historic Protestantism," and if you read Douthat regularly, you should recognize that as an extremely un-Douthat-like thing to say.
On the broader essay, I agree in broad strokes, and I'll say that among the more intellectually inclined and curious evangelicals, there seems to be a recognition that something has been lost from the Protestant past, and this is a primary cause of the Reformed revival and recapture of evangelicalism's heights. I think that even as the YRR movement is considered a spent force, Reformed theology is here to stay in a dominant intellectual position in the American Protestant church. In the open information environment of the Internet era, it naturally outcompetes the alternatives. We yearn for that connection to America's Reformed origins, and to the sense that our conservative Protestant theology is historically rooted and not something that merely follows the fashions of the times.
But there is still that gulf between us and the past, and partly I think this is because of "cultural folkways", because we're talking about Southerners and Midwesterners trying to imitate New Englanders. And partly because technology has changed the culture irrevocably and the only way out is through.
"All is not well for American Christianity to say the least. It’s easy to point at trends in the world to explain this, but given the manifest and widely publicized problems within evangelicalism, I would submit that at least as much time should go into introspection and internal reform.
This, I think, should be a time to consider our ways. Where might we be out to sea and completely wrong on important topics? We all, myself included have to be willing to consider that we might have gotten important things wrong..."
I wonder if part of what hampers reform in contemporary evangelicalism is that many of it's fiercest critics, both from within and without it's ranks, often don't seem motivated by love of God, His church, or His truth, but rather by a desire for cultural credibility, elite approval, social media followings, and book sales. Hence their critiques are either highly condemnatory of the entire evangelical project or end up rejecting orthodoxy for leftist ideology, neither or which is helpful for genuine reform.
In turn, when faced with these harsh, unloving, or unorthodox critiques, conservative evangelicals simply dismiss them as attacks by enemies of the faith and retreat and retrench into their standard cultural patterns. Hence, nothing changes and the needed call for reform is not heard. One of the things I appreciate about your writing, Aaron, is that you offer serious critique and calls for reform without the attitudes or abandonment of orthodoxy mentioned above. We need more voices calling for reform who are doctrinally and morally sound, and who love God, the church, and the truth more than secular approval.
A bolder question might be to ask if certain elements of Evangelicalism are still Christian? The humility of Christ has been replaced with the obscene belief that God wants to make us all rich. If this is true, obviously there must be something wrong with the faith of those who are not.
As much as one might decry the priest abuse scandal, or doctrinal lapse in mainline denominations, at least there's a hierarchy in these churches. It's not a cult of personality like in megachurches.
Must be nice to not have a cult of personality in your church. How’s Pope Francis doing? :) I kid, at least a little. Honestly most and I mean most evangelicals condemn prosperity preaching. Those outside evangelism have a funhouse mirror view of what’s going on inside. It does have problems but not exactly the ones you think.
In Southern California, I sometimes wonder whether Pasadena is derived from Puritan Boston, and the rest of So Cal from Quaker Philadelphia. I haven’t found a way to research this theory.
Prosperity theology is a minority. I admit it’s a heresy.
I wonder why the focus is so much on evangelicalism. Almost all varieties of American Christianity have been influenced by non-Christian cultural factor to a large degree.
Mainline Protestantism might not be emotionalistic/revivalistic, but it certainly has a therapeutic emphasis and certainly does not advocate "sexual puritanism."
American Catholics believe in a cafeteria-style religion that is inimical to historic Roman Catholicism.
I also think it is wrong, in a very important way, to say that evangelicalism has produced a culture that include therapeutic religion, prosperity gospel, etc. Rather, outside cultural forces have infected it and it did not resist very well, a critique of mainline Protestantism and Catholicism (see above). The lack of resistance to non-Christian influence is the battleground issue of American churches.
Aaron - can you elaborate the difference between the therapeutic gospel and the strict ethic you mention?
Therapeutic gospel would do something like show how the Bible helps you navigate elements of daily life - like responsible social media use. Or to make it through the ups and downs of life.
A strict ethic cares a lot about avoiding sin, avoiding excess consumption, would reject things like tattoos, expects very hard work, savings, self-denial, etc. At least, this is one Protestant version.
I tend to think of therapeutic ethics emphasizing feeling and emotional equilibrium and traditional Calvinist ethics emphasizing duty and justice. One is more inward focused and the other is outward or public directed. What they have in common is a very worldly or secular orientation. What is missed sometimes about orthodox, old school Calvinism is the strong rest ethic that went hand in hand with the work ethic.
Maybe the question is, not is Evangelicalism Protestant, but are Calvinists evangelicals? 🤔
While there are of course “Reformed,” i.e. Calvinist Baptists, but at dinner most Baptists, for example don’t go on about the heroes of the Reformation. To the suggestion that they’re not Protestant, many evangelicals might offer that “we’re not trying to be”
To the degree that emotional, revivalist religion undercut serious scholarship over the years this needs remedying, yes, and an excellent start is Nancy Pearcey’s book Total Truth
There were people like the late missiologist Ralph Winter who cared more about the Pietistic Reformation that began with Spener and went through Zinzendorf and Wesley than the original Reformation.
S i r !
Had no idea I’d run into you here. Wow.
Let me express my great gratitude for the many Fieldstead projects!
To pick just one example, I’m just a few feet away here from my copy of Idols for Destruction.
Anyway, many thanks!
Great topic. I wonder when we lost it. I beg to say it’s been a very long time. My great grandmother was the founding member of a four square church in her community. When I went back to look at the roots of that denomination, it truly made me question Protestantism as a whole. But our great-grand parents did show us that work ethic. Now that our jobs are leaving us, and our religion is being striped down to the nuts and bolts, it is a great time figure this out again. Luther and Calvin may have been great in their day, but we need to back and dig the roots further. And pray. More prayer and less theological exposition. We need a change of heart. Lord help us all.
One caveat to trying to apply Weber to an American context should be the understanding that prior to WWII, few Germans had any interest in America. "Puritan" in Weber's sense is English Puritan and not necessarily New England Puritan. This is the same issue with Heidegger and other Germans of that period. America is seen as an irrelevant side note to European issues. There's little to no awareness by European writers of the Second Great Awakening or other American shifts in religion.
The other thing I'd add is that our analysis of Protestantism can't leave out the wide variety of dissenting movements in Europe from Luther through the French Revolution. Already in Protestantism, especially Calvinist varieties, there is a flourishing of emotionalist, gnostic, and apocalyptic sects throughout Europe. Several months ago, Alexander Dugin posted something on Twitter about Fifth Monarchy and the origin of English universalism and got a lot of ignorant blowback from "respectable" theological accounts, but keep in mind that Fifth Monarchy was the most powerful faction in the New Model Army for a significant portion of the English Civil War.
I've challenged the common categories of "traditions" and their validity before so I'm not going to reiterate that. Given that so many mainstream theologians don't actually care about the writings of the Reformation Fathers except insofar as they can use them to justify present-day political conditions, I wouldn't approach the issue in terms of a "Protestant Tradition" vs. an "Evangelical Tradition." Perhaps the focus should be: why are so many people falling for common errors surrounding emotionalism, volitional gnosticism, and apocalypticism?
While Evangelicalism has its fault I say NO.
Evangelicals aren’t shut out of important institutions because they aren’t interested, they are actively shut out because they are evangelical. In institutions like the military which is still comparatively meritocratic or has been for years, evangelicals do quite well. It’s telling that it took Yale law school for JD Vance, then an atheist, to pivot from the evangelicalism he was raised in to higher status “respectable” Catholicism.
Evangelicals aren’t skeptical of institutions because they’re just the lazy know nothings they’re made out to be but because those institutions have been hostile to them and they were tired of sending their young to college and having them come back heretical or atheist.
Furthermore, RCs and EOs seem to love the high hat about sloppy evangelicals; meanwhile cradle RCs and EOs don’t exactly have a reputation for high ethics, mainline Protestants apostasize like mad, etc. Also the prosperity gospel is overtly rejected by most evangelicals yet it gets thrown in our faces like it’s our fault. The source of the lazy and vicious corruption that plagues historically Catholic countries on the other hand is more of a mystery.
I value many Catholic writers and thinkers and have since I was young. From GKC to Jacques Phillipe, they have been a positive influence so don’t get me wrong. I just know what it’s like to have a 1540 SAT as an evangelical and it be assumed that I’m some unlearned savage by secondary sources only “thinkers”.
are these woke institutions any more open to serious Catholics? I doubt.
They were open to JD Vance’s classmate, so at least once. Again Catholicism is broadly more “respectable” because it’s associated with groups they own and/or court, Hispanics and so on. It’s an ethnic and cultural distinction in practice as well as a religious one.
'Bad Religion' is an excellent book. And indeed it doesn't condemn evangelicalism, but rather various misguided paths that have grown out of the historic Christian faith. In fact, towards the end of the book Douthat singles out Tim Keller for particular praise, as a pastor who combined confessional Christianity with intellectual seriousness and a willingness to engage the culture.
I enjoy your writing. Often, I’m left wanting more.
“ We all, myself included have to be willing to consider that we might have gotten important things wrong,”
Certainly we have gotten some things wrong. We are human.
But which things do you have in mind? Does it collectively matter?
Consumerism rather than asceticism is one you mention. I agree, but am also guilty, albeit less as I age.
Thinking we are in charge and that we might solve things is what concerns me. Some refer to cults of personality. I agree: a church that is about the pastor has likely gone astray. But too much focus on “solving problems” is, I believe also astray.
I’m just a tax law academic and no social science intellectual. But I see my job — and yours — primarily to be part of the harvest. Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. That is number one. What others do or believe is for God to worry about. Ultimately, only one seed of four grew in good soil. That seems to be about right.
My second job — and your’s — is to love my neighbor. Good works flow naturally from the first rule. Be kind. Let the Spirit lead you. You may be called to feed, or to teach, or to farm, or to heal. Do your best. But you do this not for wealth or recognition, but rather that God might use you and your acts to reach one more.
I keep returning to Philippians 3:8. All is rubbish. If it is well with your soul, what does any of this matter? If it is not, surely nothing you see, do, or have matters.
Most people miss the simplicity. Many cause others to stumble. But Jesus used the example of 3/4 not making it. Those are not my numbers. They are His. Why fret that what he said was true then and is true now?
>I haven’t read Bad Religion, but my understanding is that Douthat may have been referring to some specific strains like the prosperity gospel here.
Yes, I think I shared this same comment on your review of Todd's book. First of all, everyone should read Douthat's book, it's good and probably his most complete commentary on the state of the American church, from a man who I'd argue is contemporary America's most visible religious commentator. Second, Todd didn't seem to understand Douthat at all, and based on this comment of his, I kind of doubted that he had even read the book.
Douthat isn't out there saying conservative Southern Baptists and Presbyterians are out there promulgating "heresies with no real connection to historic Protestantism," and if you read Douthat regularly, you should recognize that as an extremely un-Douthat-like thing to say.
On the broader essay, I agree in broad strokes, and I'll say that among the more intellectually inclined and curious evangelicals, there seems to be a recognition that something has been lost from the Protestant past, and this is a primary cause of the Reformed revival and recapture of evangelicalism's heights. I think that even as the YRR movement is considered a spent force, Reformed theology is here to stay in a dominant intellectual position in the American Protestant church. In the open information environment of the Internet era, it naturally outcompetes the alternatives. We yearn for that connection to America's Reformed origins, and to the sense that our conservative Protestant theology is historically rooted and not something that merely follows the fashions of the times.
But there is still that gulf between us and the past, and partly I think this is because of "cultural folkways", because we're talking about Southerners and Midwesterners trying to imitate New Englanders. And partly because technology has changed the culture irrevocably and the only way out is through.
"All is not well for American Christianity to say the least. It’s easy to point at trends in the world to explain this, but given the manifest and widely publicized problems within evangelicalism, I would submit that at least as much time should go into introspection and internal reform.
This, I think, should be a time to consider our ways. Where might we be out to sea and completely wrong on important topics? We all, myself included have to be willing to consider that we might have gotten important things wrong..."
I wonder if part of what hampers reform in contemporary evangelicalism is that many of it's fiercest critics, both from within and without it's ranks, often don't seem motivated by love of God, His church, or His truth, but rather by a desire for cultural credibility, elite approval, social media followings, and book sales. Hence their critiques are either highly condemnatory of the entire evangelical project or end up rejecting orthodoxy for leftist ideology, neither or which is helpful for genuine reform.
In turn, when faced with these harsh, unloving, or unorthodox critiques, conservative evangelicals simply dismiss them as attacks by enemies of the faith and retreat and retrench into their standard cultural patterns. Hence, nothing changes and the needed call for reform is not heard. One of the things I appreciate about your writing, Aaron, is that you offer serious critique and calls for reform without the attitudes or abandonment of orthodoxy mentioned above. We need more voices calling for reform who are doctrinally and morally sound, and who love God, the church, and the truth more than secular approval.
Thank you.
A bolder question might be to ask if certain elements of Evangelicalism are still Christian? The humility of Christ has been replaced with the obscene belief that God wants to make us all rich. If this is true, obviously there must be something wrong with the faith of those who are not.
As much as one might decry the priest abuse scandal, or doctrinal lapse in mainline denominations, at least there's a hierarchy in these churches. It's not a cult of personality like in megachurches.
Must be nice to not have a cult of personality in your church. How’s Pope Francis doing? :) I kid, at least a little. Honestly most and I mean most evangelicals condemn prosperity preaching. Those outside evangelism have a funhouse mirror view of what’s going on inside. It does have problems but not exactly the ones you think.