https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/losing-faith-in-atheism
Excerpts from an upcoming book.
It’s a good piece. The path he shares with us is not unfamiliar. I’ve
heard many renditions of this. He’s a good writer so its more
skillfully articulated.
I thought the “romantic idealism” section was particularly good.
A few thoughts stuck out:
- He’s obviously above average in many respects. He can and has read
the philosophers. High IQ, successful author, thoughtful man. Regular
community elite, not Epstein class class. New Yorker audience. His
wikipedia page is sparse but sufficient.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Beha#Early_life_and_education - Unlike assumptions in the mid to early 20th century most of people
who are actually participating in church tend to skew better educated.
It sort of undermines the “religion is a crutch for the stupid”
argument. - He returned to the religion of his youth, and he’s Catholic. I’m
starting to develop a profile of this type. The sacramentalist
traditions afford a loseness that the confessionalist traditions tend
to lack. There are tradeoffs with this, especially for their own
church. A liturgy and sacrament dispensery that doesn’t ask too much
of your loves, commitments and convictions. This makes for fierce
warring in the RC. They can proxy most of their culture war battles
in-house. In some ways it’s big and anonymous.
Lila Rose and Nancy Pelosi “go to the same church”.
But obviously “going to the same church” in that case means something
different from “Doug Wilson and Pete Hegseth go to the same church.”
Nobody seems to mind too much with Rose and Pelosi.
The fact that Lila Rose is better aligned with “Catholic social
teaching” means not a lot to the church of Biden and Pelosi.
Despite what might be said at “The National Prayer Breakfast” Trump is
a part of no church.
Calvin pushed on “church discipline” as a mark of the church.
Understanding Renaissance Catholicism helps see why he leaned into
that.
Geneva of course burned Servitus, which some of my Internet friends
never let me forget. Servitus was a very interesting guy actually. I
wish they had just let him live, although there is reason to imagine
Servitus’ decision to NOT avoid his death was in the end a costly
“win” in terms of being remembered in history. Suicide by Famous
Reformer.
While some run to Orthodoxy hoping to avoid the Rose/Pelosi dissonance
they are hardly a haven for that. They’ve got Putin.
Anglicans of course have the same issue.
A friend of mine from “the corner” is thinking of heading “to Rome”.
There is a good CRC near him that I’ve been encouraging him to check
out. He’s outspoken politically (on the left) but just wants a church
“where left and right can worship together” which the RC clearly
offers. I don’t know if it will be a fit for him or not. It helps if
the priest keeps the homily brief and vague I suppose. pvk
Leadingchurch.com 