From the 16th century onwards, the Protestant Reformation was unified by the Reformers’ belief that the Roman Catholic Church had drifted so far away from Christian Truth, that it had withered to un-salvageability and must be completely abandoned.
When I was becoming Orthodox, one of my protestant mentors earnestly tried to persuade me to remain Evangelical. He argued that everything I was discovering, through history, philosophy, art, literature, the liturgy itself, these were all things that the evangelical church would benefit from. He hoped that I could be a sort of liason, bringing gifts and riches into the evangelical tradition from outside of it.
This article is a good articulation of exactly why that can't work. Very few people, if they seriously read history and the Fathers, can remain evangelical protestant. The few who can can find no good soil in the tradition for the gifts they are trying to plant, and they wither away.
The drive towards purity instead of dialogue is what drives sectarianism. I think this is partly driven by the fixation on salvation as opposed to the whole spiritual life: the binary moment of salvation, and the specific conditions of salvation (and how the slightest conceptual variations warrants hell), and failing to see that salvation is perhaps a process, and not just an individual one.
Ironically I think the pathology of narrow-mindedness you’re describing is actually an overemphasis of the mind just as much as it is a neglect of it. Spirituality is reduced to salvation which is further reduced to fidelity to mental-conceptual affirmations that are totally disconnected from body & life. If they do manage to influence one’s life, it simply leads to a single-minded will totally disconnected from reflection and the dialectic process of any single positive thesis, and eventually towards a mode of being tolerant of only a narrow set of personality temperaments. (Example: seeing populist egalitarian spirituality not simply as an approach with pros/cons, but as a final answer that holds educated elites in utter disdain)
The key issue you hit on in this article, in my view, is that Orthodoxy reflects real life, it reflects the world and people as they are in their multiplicity: it has a place for everybody. This is very much in keeping with how St. Paul described the Church:
“For the body is not one member, but many. … But now are they many members, yet but one body. … Much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.” 1 Cor. 12:14, 20, 22-23 The whole passage is worth reviewing in this respect, from verse 12 through verse 30.
For all of his good intentions, Noll is ultimately on the wrong path. What Protestantism lacks is not (just) intellectualism, but a number of other important qualities that have nothing to do with intellectualism and in fact are more like its opposite: an appreciation of mystery, the pursuit of holiness, a focus on humility and repentance.
If Noll were to get his way, and Protestantism to become more “intellectual”, where would that get him? And, from our perspective, would Protestantism look more like Orthodoxy as a result? Not at all. A more intellectualized Protestant church would look more scholastic, more academic, more rationalistic and – yes – more secular. The strains of Protestantism that pursued a pure intellectualism went in a more secular, more modernist and more scientistic direction: The movement of New Criticism, for instance, which eviscerated the mystical and spiritual aspects of the New Testament, including any belief in the bodily resurrection, are just one fruit of “intellectual Protestantism”, and the same spirit eventually spilled over into modern Catholicism which wanted to “keep up” and has now become equally secular in its approach to Biblical studies.
Generally speaking, the Western churches as a whole – Protestant and Roman Catholic – are rationalistic, “logical” and worldly in their approach and mindset. The arguments that take place between those worlds are arguments between different approaches to rationalism. Mystical spirituality and holiness have next to no place there. (To be fair, Roman Catholicism has a solid tradition of monasticism and asceticism. But that tradition has been relegated to a small and marginal role that is but a shadow of its former self, and is certainly not the focus of Catholic life.)
To come at this from a different angle, consider the word Theologian. To a Protestant (and most Catholics), this word refers to an academic, an intellectual who has accumulated knowledge of religious facts. Someone who has systematized Christian knowledge is a “theologian”. For Orthodox, a theologian is _one who knows God through direct experiential knowledge_: a theologian is a mystic, a prayer warrior, someone well along on the path of theosis. It is a categorically different type of person, and one that Protestantism largely does not even know exists. Protestantism will never produce such a person through “intellectualism”. In fact, that will lead them even further away from knowledge of God, which comes from prayer and asceticism, not scholarship.
In a slightly different context, in his Substack column today, Rod Dreher just posted something that makes a similar point about Protestantism (and much of Roman Catholicism): “They might be religious believers, but they have surrendered to Cartesian dualism (that is, the mind-body split).” Put simply, for whatever they say and even think, they simply do not have a living and substantial belief in the metaphysical, in the spiritual, in the mystical. It is a full-on materialistic religion. “Intellectualism” will not fix it.
This is a brilliant comment and there's probably a dozen hittings of the nail, right on the head. Ultimately though, as long as Noll hits his own nail on the head describing the Evangelical Low Church's lack of appeal to the High IQ, the Introverted, the Cultured, the Knowledgeable, etc. then I don't really care that Noll's vision on what is to be done differs from mine. The purpose of this article is not to make the case that Evangelical Protestantism should become more intellectual, but rather how Orthodoxy solves the Scandal Of The Evangelical Mind that Noll talks of.
Thank you. And fair enough about your article: I was in a way going off on a tangent by focusing on Noll. Also, as you note, the problem Noll was addressing is a problem with most specifically with _Low Church_ evangelicalism, not necessarily with all of Protestantism.
One big hope I had when I wrote this article: if there are any High IQ people in Low Church Evangelical spaces who've grown to detest the anti-intellectual style but still want to be Christian, that they know that becoming Orthodox is an option they have. Being the person that I needed when I was younger, essentially. It'd be a different matter if conservative Anglicans and Lutherans were the mainstream of Protestantism in America, but it's not, it's the Non-Denominationals, Baptists and Pentecostals.
I think that flow is starting to happen, not just among some High IQ people, but more generally people who are seeking a deeper spiritual life. The increasing prominence of some recent converts, like Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw, who are simply interesting and creative people, should also help.
When I was becoming Orthodox, one of my protestant mentors earnestly tried to persuade me to remain Evangelical. He argued that everything I was discovering, through history, philosophy, art, literature, the liturgy itself, these were all things that the evangelical church would benefit from. He hoped that I could be a sort of liason, bringing gifts and riches into the evangelical tradition from outside of it.
This article is a good articulation of exactly why that can't work. Very few people, if they seriously read history and the Fathers, can remain evangelical protestant. The few who can can find no good soil in the tradition for the gifts they are trying to plant, and they wither away.
Look forward to reading more of your work!
The drive towards purity instead of dialogue is what drives sectarianism. I think this is partly driven by the fixation on salvation as opposed to the whole spiritual life: the binary moment of salvation, and the specific conditions of salvation (and how the slightest conceptual variations warrants hell), and failing to see that salvation is perhaps a process, and not just an individual one.
Ironically I think the pathology of narrow-mindedness you’re describing is actually an overemphasis of the mind just as much as it is a neglect of it. Spirituality is reduced to salvation which is further reduced to fidelity to mental-conceptual affirmations that are totally disconnected from body & life. If they do manage to influence one’s life, it simply leads to a single-minded will totally disconnected from reflection and the dialectic process of any single positive thesis, and eventually towards a mode of being tolerant of only a narrow set of personality temperaments. (Example: seeing populist egalitarian spirituality not simply as an approach with pros/cons, but as a final answer that holds educated elites in utter disdain)
The key issue you hit on in this article, in my view, is that Orthodoxy reflects real life, it reflects the world and people as they are in their multiplicity: it has a place for everybody. This is very much in keeping with how St. Paul described the Church:
“For the body is not one member, but many. … But now are they many members, yet but one body. … Much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.” 1 Cor. 12:14, 20, 22-23 The whole passage is worth reviewing in this respect, from verse 12 through verse 30.
For all of his good intentions, Noll is ultimately on the wrong path. What Protestantism lacks is not (just) intellectualism, but a number of other important qualities that have nothing to do with intellectualism and in fact are more like its opposite: an appreciation of mystery, the pursuit of holiness, a focus on humility and repentance.
If Noll were to get his way, and Protestantism to become more “intellectual”, where would that get him? And, from our perspective, would Protestantism look more like Orthodoxy as a result? Not at all. A more intellectualized Protestant church would look more scholastic, more academic, more rationalistic and – yes – more secular. The strains of Protestantism that pursued a pure intellectualism went in a more secular, more modernist and more scientistic direction: The movement of New Criticism, for instance, which eviscerated the mystical and spiritual aspects of the New Testament, including any belief in the bodily resurrection, are just one fruit of “intellectual Protestantism”, and the same spirit eventually spilled over into modern Catholicism which wanted to “keep up” and has now become equally secular in its approach to Biblical studies.
Generally speaking, the Western churches as a whole – Protestant and Roman Catholic – are rationalistic, “logical” and worldly in their approach and mindset. The arguments that take place between those worlds are arguments between different approaches to rationalism. Mystical spirituality and holiness have next to no place there. (To be fair, Roman Catholicism has a solid tradition of monasticism and asceticism. But that tradition has been relegated to a small and marginal role that is but a shadow of its former self, and is certainly not the focus of Catholic life.)
To come at this from a different angle, consider the word Theologian. To a Protestant (and most Catholics), this word refers to an academic, an intellectual who has accumulated knowledge of religious facts. Someone who has systematized Christian knowledge is a “theologian”. For Orthodox, a theologian is _one who knows God through direct experiential knowledge_: a theologian is a mystic, a prayer warrior, someone well along on the path of theosis. It is a categorically different type of person, and one that Protestantism largely does not even know exists. Protestantism will never produce such a person through “intellectualism”. In fact, that will lead them even further away from knowledge of God, which comes from prayer and asceticism, not scholarship.
In a slightly different context, in his Substack column today, Rod Dreher just posted something that makes a similar point about Protestantism (and much of Roman Catholicism): “They might be religious believers, but they have surrendered to Cartesian dualism (that is, the mind-body split).” Put simply, for whatever they say and even think, they simply do not have a living and substantial belief in the metaphysical, in the spiritual, in the mystical. It is a full-on materialistic religion. “Intellectualism” will not fix it.
This is a brilliant comment and there's probably a dozen hittings of the nail, right on the head. Ultimately though, as long as Noll hits his own nail on the head describing the Evangelical Low Church's lack of appeal to the High IQ, the Introverted, the Cultured, the Knowledgeable, etc. then I don't really care that Noll's vision on what is to be done differs from mine. The purpose of this article is not to make the case that Evangelical Protestantism should become more intellectual, but rather how Orthodoxy solves the Scandal Of The Evangelical Mind that Noll talks of.
Thank you. And fair enough about your article: I was in a way going off on a tangent by focusing on Noll. Also, as you note, the problem Noll was addressing is a problem with most specifically with _Low Church_ evangelicalism, not necessarily with all of Protestantism.
One big hope I had when I wrote this article: if there are any High IQ people in Low Church Evangelical spaces who've grown to detest the anti-intellectual style but still want to be Christian, that they know that becoming Orthodox is an option they have. Being the person that I needed when I was younger, essentially. It'd be a different matter if conservative Anglicans and Lutherans were the mainstream of Protestantism in America, but it's not, it's the Non-Denominationals, Baptists and Pentecostals.
I think that flow is starting to happen, not just among some High IQ people, but more generally people who are seeking a deeper spiritual life. The increasing prominence of some recent converts, like Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw, who are simply interesting and creative people, should also help.
This is such a wonderful article. Very insightful. Thank you
You’re welcome Rachael :)