“Theologians have substituted controversy for persecution; does that mean a mere surrender of their mutual positions? . . . There is a point in this religious amiability at which supposed charity to man becomes an insult to God.”
— Lionel Johnson
My friend Rod Dreher has a fascinating post at his blog for The American Conservative called “The ‘I Love Jesus, Dammit’ Christians”. If you haven’t read it, please do. But here’s an excerpt:
I’ve been at a pastors’ conference this week. A young pastor from a Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod parish and I were just talking. (LCMS are the conservative Lutherans.) He said that they have had in his parish an influx of people in their twenties who are noticeably different from older Christians. “They are—I can’t think of a better way to put this—like, ‘I love Jesus, dammit.’”
Later:
Small-o orthodox Christians in their twenties and early thirties are not the least bit interested in the compromises and conformity of the older generations. They want the real thing. They understand better than the older generations that there really isn’t a way to reconcile true Christianity with whatever degenerate crap our Babylon-on-the-half-shell culture comes up with.
That’s all true, and I love it. But reading Mr. Dreher’s post, another thought crossed my mind. In my experience, these small-o orthodox Christians are also far more willing to engage with other “Christian traditions” than older conservatives. The young Protestant turks have a real admiration for Catholicism, and the young Catholic young turks for Eastern Orthodoxy.
Is this a kind of “ecumenism of the trenches,” to borrow another phrase from Mr. Dreher? I don’t think so. I think the truth is more like this:
There’s no denying that we live in an age of dissolution. All over the West, traditional Protestants are being driven out of their denominations. Traditional Catholics aren’t faring much better. It’s obvious now that we’re not very popular with many of the senior bishops. And, even if we were, it’s also obvious that the Church is still struggling to define itself in the wake of Vatican II.
So, for believing Christians, it’s not obvious that the alternative to Catholicism is Protestantism. And it’s not obvious that the alternative to Protestantism is Catholicism, either—at least, not the way it was for John Henry Newman or G. K. Chesterton.
Now, I believe the Catholic Church is also the one true Church. But the temporal Rome is obscuring the eternal Rome. It’s hard to look at the Catholic Church today as a haven for the Apostolic Faith. Of course, just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it isn’t true. But that’s the reality.
Meanwhile, the Orthodox Church is still so small (and so ethnic) that even its most zealous members won’t claim that Orthodoxy is the obvious alternative to the crises in the other two “branches.”
In other words, it’s hard to pretend that everyone who doesn’t agree with us is secretly malicious, or acting in bad faith, or just plain stupid. Even three or four years ago, that rhetoric was still pretty common. But now it’s extremely hard to be a triumphalist, no matter which “branch” of Christianity you hail from.
And that’s a good thing.
This difficulty, this obscurity, isn’t anything new. The First Council of Nicaea was a brawl between very sincere Athanasians and very sincere Arians. The Great Schism was a dispute between very sincere “filioquists” and very sincere “anti-filioquists.” From the 1500s through the 1700s, Catholics and Protestants were burning each other at the stake—and getting burnt themselves—with an iron certainty in the righteousness of their own cause.
Obviously, that’s not ideal. But the lesson most Christians have drawn from these feuds is that we should de-emphasize doctrine or ecclesiology in favor of “unity.” Which is even more wrong (wronger?). Because these questions matter. The declarations of “unity” brought about by modern ecumenism are only worth the paper they’re written on. If anything, they make true unity harder. You can’t fix a problem by ignoring it.
Yet between these two attitudes—triumphalism and paper ecumenism—I think there’s a new tendency emerging. And it looks something like this:
The modern West is the most secular society in human history. Many of us grow up without even an ancestral memory of the old Christian order. Materialism is our default worldview. Our conversion (or reversion) to Christianity entails a conscious rejection of the secularism that we took in with our mother’s milk.
This is a blessing, but not an unmixed one. You’ll sometimes hear older Catholics complain about young trads who suffer from “convert neurosis”. Something similar happens in the Orthodox Church—hence, the “OrthoBro” subculture. These guys are definitely triumphalists. But, really, who cares? They’re new to the field and want to prove they’re on the team. That’s awesome.
Of course, they have to grow out of it eventually. In the meantime, though, their hearts are in the right place. I’m the last person to be giving advice, but whenever a friend joins the Church, I always tell him, “Never stop being this excited to be a Catholic, because it really is exciting. You’ll be tempted to take it for granted. Don’t.”
That’s one of the great things about being a convert. Even if you do start to take it for granted, you can still look back to those first months in the Church and remember how blessed you felt. It’s a little flame that burns in your heart forever, waiting to flare up into gratitude whenever you need it.
Another advantage is that we know how hard it is to choose Christianity. If you’re raised in a deeply Catholic culture, it’s difficult to relate to someone who was raised in a deeply Protestant culture. But if you choose to become a traditionalist Catholic after growing up in a secular environment, and you meet someone who also grew up in a secular environment but chose to become a traditional Protestant instead, you’ve got an immediate rapport. The two of you just click. You’re “on the same journey.”
Now, you may think the other guys is on the wrong path. You may even fear for his soul. But you get each other—more than you get the Cafeteria Catholics. You realize what a hard fight he’s fighting, and you thank God he’s come this far.
It’s also much easier to sympathize with others who are seeking the God of Our Lord Jesus Christ in good faith. Lots of older right-wing Catholics still use “Puritan” as a slur, but I don’t know any young ones who do. They’re more likely to admire guys like John Winthrop or Jonathan Edwards. They were trying to do right by God, just as we are. They walked a hard and lonely road, just as we do.
The Catholic–Orthodox bond is even closer. I know one traditionalist Catholic who thinks hesychasm is demonic, but I know several who pray the Jesus Prayer with a prayer rope or fanboy over Ivan Ilyin. And why not? That’s our tradition, too. Granted, as Latins, it’s not our “ecclesial culture.” But these days, Latin “ecclesial culture” is polyester chasubles and electric keyboards tinkling out “On Eagle’s Wings.” What have we got to lose?
I may be wrong, but my impression of these folks is that they’re both more genuinely rigorous than many older “conservatives” and more tolerant than many older “liberals.” They’re rigorous because they’re not willing to rest on their laurels; they’re tolerant because they know how hard it is to live as a disciple of Christ in the 21st-century West. They seem to enjoy the challenge, too.
Again, why not? John Henry Newman talked about the great burden of living in a “Christian age,” where you can never quite tell if your faith is sincere or not, because it never causes you any real inconvenience. Well, that’s one burden the Good Lord has not asked us to shoulder. And we should thank Him for that.
These young Christians also love trying to win other Christians over to their own brand of Christianity, although they do so in a spirit of charity and encouragement. I have never once met a convert who refused to be my friend because we didn’t belong to the same denomination. If anything, the opposite is true. It’s fun being able to spar with old-school Anglicans, rock-ribbed Presbyterians, even the odd OrthoBro.
We don’t think of this as ecumenism, but it is. And that’s why it works. The wounds in the Church are being healed by these zealous youngsters letting their love for Jesus Christ overflow into brotherly love for their fellow disciples-in-training. We’re all trying to get to Heaven, and we’re excited to bump into these fellow pilgrims along the way.
Call it the “ecumenism of the willing.” And it’s a beautiful thing.
Friends, my TAC column for this week is about Fra Girolamo Savonarola, the great prophet and martyr of Renaissance Florence. Savonarola is one of my top-tier heroes from history. He embodies the radical Christocentrism we have to adopt in ages of dissolution (like ours).
Even if you’ve read the chapter on Savonarola in my book, this column has a lot more biographical information. It also focuses on his political agenda as de facto ruler of Florence. I hope you like it.
Peace and the Good!