I’m in Mere O on church and culture

I’ve got an essay in the latest issue of the print edition of Mere Orthodoxy, and Jake has just posted it online this morning. It’s titled “Once More, Church and Culture.” Here’s the opening paragraph:

Christendom is the name we give to Christian civilization, when society, culture, law, art, family, politics, and worship are saturated by the church’s influence and informed by its authority. Christendom traces its beginnings to the fourth century after Christ; it began to ebb, in fits and starts, sometime during the transition from the late middle ages to the early modern period. It is tempting to plot its demise with the American and French revolutions, though in truth it outlasted both in many places. It came to a more or less definitive end with the world wars (in Europe) and the Cold War (in America). Even those who lament Christendom’s passing and hope for its reestablishment have no doubt that the West is post-Christian in this sense. The West will always carry within it its Christian past — whether as a living wellspring, a lingering shadow, a haunting ghost, or an exorcised demon — but it is indisputable that whatever the West has become, it is not what it once was. Christendom is no more.

Re-reading what I’ve written there (drafted last summer, I think), I’m inclined to say the opening seven paragraphs make for some of my better writing. It’s a potted history of Christendom before and in America, and how it continues to haunt Protestant reflection about “church and culture.” Part two of the essay takes up H. Richard Niebuhr’s typology and James Davison Hunter’s “faithful presence.” Part three takes a stab at an alternative framework—but not one more single-label option that captures all contexts and circumstances. Read on to see more.

And once you’ve read it, go subscribe to the Mere O print magazine. It’s great!

Two further thoughts. First, some version of this essay has been rattling around in the back of my mind since January 2017, when I first taught a week-long intensive course called “Christianity and Culture.” I’ve taught it now every single January since. That’s seven total! Didn’t even miss for Covid. The texts have varied, but I’ve consistently had students read Hauerwas, Jenson, JDH (excerpts), JKAS (You Are What You Love), THW (Liturgy of the Ordinary), TIB (Strange Rites), Douthat (Bad Religion), Dreher (the old pre-book FAQ), Wilkinson/Joustra, Tisby, Cone, and Crouch. It always goes so well. And every Friday of the course, I conclude with, basically, what I’ve written in this essay: a set of typologies; a critique of them; and my own proposal. I’m grateful to Jake for letting me finally put it down in black and white.

Second, this essay has brought home to me how much this topic has dominated my thoughts, and therefore my writing, since I finished my dissertation six years ago. Specifically, the topic of the church in relation to society, which brings in its wake questions about Christendom, America, liberalism, and integralism, not to mention missiology, culture, technology, liturgy, and even anti-Judaism. Everything, in other words! For those who may be interested, here is an incomplete list of publications that bear on these matters and thus supplement this particular essay:

• Theologians Were Arguing About the Benedict Options 35 Years Ago” Mere Orthodoxy | 13 March 2017

• Public Theology in Retreat Los Angeles Review of Books | 20 September 2017

• Holy Ambivalence Los Angeles Review of Books | 1 March 2018

• The Church and the Common Good Comment | 17 January 2019

• The Specter of Marcion Commonweal | 13 February 2019

• A Better Country Plough | 4 August 2019

• Sacraments, Technology, and Streaming Worship in a Pandemic Mere Orthodoxy | 2 April 2020

• The Circumcision of Abraham’s God First Things | 1 January 2021

• When Losing Is Likely The Point | 18 June 2021

• Market Apocalypse Mere Orthodoxy | 25 August 2021

• Statistics as Storytelling The New Atlantis | 1 October 2021

• Still Supersessionist? Commonweal | 29 October 2021

• Jewish Jesus, Black Christ The Christian Century | 25 January 2022

• Unlearning Machines Comment | 24 March 2022

• Can We Be Human in Meatspace? The New Atlantis | 2 May 2022

• Another Option for Christian Politics, Front Porch Republic | 4 July 2022

• The Ruins of Christendom, Los Angeles Review of Books | 10 July 2022

• The Church in the Immanent Frame First Things | 14 July 2022

• The Bible in America (forthcoming in The Christian Century)

I’m in Mere O on streaming worship

Three weeks after Tom Hanks and Rudy Gobert tested positive for Covid, Mere Orthodoxy published an essay of mine titled “Sacraments, Technology, and Streaming Worship in a Pandemic.” It’s a long exploration of the nature of Christian liturgy and the questions posed to it by an emergency like a global pandemic. It uses Neil Postman and Robert Jenson to place a question mark next to the seeming self-evident answer to the question, To stream or not to stream? In particular, it makes the case that, if churches are going to stream worship, they should not include the sacraments. That is, they should fast from the Eucharist while separated in the body; they should not encourage individual believers to “self-administer” communion at home.

Nearly three years later, I’m back in Mere O with another essay on the same topic, this time titled “Stream Off.” It’s about the lingering questions posed by the emergency measures implemented during lockdown and the broader crisis phase of Covid. Namely: Granting that nearly every church did turn to streaming worship online, should they continue to do so? Moreover, should they actively seek to “expand their reach” through live-streaming? Should they invite people to “join us online”? to “be a member of church from afar”? to “worship from home,” if and as they please?

You know my answer. This essay, long burbling in the back of my mind, makes the case.

Update (January 12): LOL. Apparently a full year ago Tish Harrison Warren wrote about this in the NYT, followed by some responses from readers. Twelve months ago! Obviously it’s kosher to write about the same topic, especially one that’s continuing in the way streaming is, but I’m not sure how I overlooked it. As they say, I regret the error.

I’m on Mere Fidelity

Did I say quit podcasts? I meant all of them except one.

I’m on the latest episode of Mere Fidelity, talking about my book The Doctrine of Scripture and, well, the doctrine of Scripture. (Links: Google, Spotify, Apple, Soundcloud.) It was a pleasure to chat with Derek and Alastair and (surprise!) Timothy. Matt had to bail last minute. I can only assume he was nervous.

No joke, it was an honor to be on. For the last decade, I have lived by the mantra, “No podcasts before tenure.” I’ve turned down every invitation. In 2020–21 I participated in three podcasts as a member of The Liberating Arts, the first two as the interviewer (of Alan Noble and Jon Baskin, respectively) and the third as interviewee, speaking on behalf of the project (this was 11 months ago, but the podcast just posted this week, as it happens). In other words, this experience with Mere Fi was for all intents and purposes my first true podcast experience, in full and on the receiving end.

It was fun! I hope I didn’t flub too many answers. I tend to speak in winding paragraphs, not in discrete and manageable sentences. Besides, it’s hard to compete with Alastair’s erudition—and that accent!

Check it out. And the Patreon, where there’s a +1 segment. Thanks again to the Mere Fi crew. I give all of you dear readers a big glorious exception to go and listen to them. They’ve got the best theology pod around. What a gift to be included on the fun.

New essay: “Market Apocalypse” in Mere Orthodoxy

My latest is up at Mere Orthodoxy this morning. Titled “Market Apocalypse,” it’s a review essay of Rodney Clapp’s new book, Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age. Here’s a taste:

Clapp’s book is titled Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age. But you might imagine it renamed, à la Patrick Deneen’s bestseller, Why Neoliberalism Failed. Like Deneen, Clapp wants to draw critical attention to what is hiding in plain sight. “What goes unnamed” in such circumstances “is the neoliberal framework that entraps us all.” Entrapment is the proper image for Clapp’s view: we are seduced and deceived by neoliberalism’s lure, but once we fall for the trick, we’re stuck. And the consequences are comprehensive: “Neoliberalism has transformed us — heart, body, and soul.”

Clapp is uninterested, however, in merely naming neoliberalism: many writers and scholars have already done that. He wants to name it as a Christian. That is, he wants to reveal neoliberalism for what it is in theological perspective, and to propose a specifically theological alternative. He thinks this task crucial because neoliberalism can be neither fully understood nor adequately opposed without reference to God, specifically the gospel of the incarnate God, Jesus Christ, and his people, the church.

Go read the rest here.

Two new essays on the long Lent of Covidtide

Last week in Mere Orthodoxy I wrote about Tish Harrison Warren's terrific new book, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep.

Today I’m in First Things reflecting on what it means to celebrate the Triduum in Covidtide.

The essays are, in a way, companion pieces. Both are about persisting in Lent as we approach Easter Sunday; both reflect on the long Lent of the last year (the emergency liturgical season of "Covidtide"); both insist that resurrection is coming; both remind us that the passage to Sunday runs through the passion of Jesus. Some of us need to know in our bones that Jesus is risen; some of need to recall that Holy Saturday comes first.

Yesterday I read St. Luke's account of Jesus's final hours with his disciples. The passage in 22:31-34 is almost too much to bear:

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.” And he said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” He said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you three times deny that you know me.”

The Lord calls us and prays for each of us by name. Like St. Peter, we will fail (vv. 56-60), and beneath the gaze of the Lord (v. 61), we will weep bitterly (v. 62). But borne up by his prayers and the power of his cross, we will turn again, strengthened and ready to strengthen (John 21:15-17). Only then will we be truly ready to take up our own cross and follow him (vv. 18-19).

A blessed Triduum to all of you.

Publication round-up: recent pieces in First Things, Journal of Theological Interpretation, Mere Orthodoxy, and The Liberating Arts

I've been busy the last month, but I wanted to make sure I posted links here to some recent pieces of mine published during the Advent and Christmas seasons.

First, I wrote a meditation on the first Sunday of Advent for Mere Orthodoxy called "The Face of God."

Second, I interviewed Jon Baskin for The Liberating Arts in a video/podcast called "Can the Humanities Find a Home in the Academy?" Earlier in the fall I interviewed Alan Noble for TLA on why the church needs Christian colleges.

Third, in the latest issue of Journal of Theological Interpretation, I have a long article that seeks to answer a question simply stated: "What Are the Standards of Excellence for Theological Interpretation of Scripture?"

Fourth and last, yesterday, New Year's Day, First Things published a short essay I wrote called "The Circumcision of Israel's God." It's a theological meditation on the liturgical significance of January 1 being simultaneously the feast of the circumcision of Christ (for the East), the solemnity of Mary the Mother of God (for Rome), the feast of the name of Jesus (for many Protestants), and a global day for peace (per Pope Paul VI). I use a wonderful passage from St. Theodore the Studite's polemic against the iconoclasts to draw connections between each of these features of the one mystery of the incarnation of the God of Israel.

More to come in 2021. Lord willing it will prove a relief from the last 12 months.

New piece published in Mere Orthodoxy: "Befriending Books: On Reading and Thinking with Alan Jacobs and Zena Hitz"

I'm in Mere Orthodoxy with a long review-essay of two new books: Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind by Alan Jacobs and Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. Here's a section from the opening:

If the quality of one’s thinking depends upon the quality of those one thinks with, the truth is that few of us have the ability to secure membership in a community of brilliant and wise, like-hearted but independent thinkers. Search for one as much as we like, we are bound to be frustrated. Moreover, recourse to the internet—one commonly proffered solution—is far more likely to exacerbate than to alleviate the problem: we may find like-minded souls, yes, but down that rabbit hole lies danger on every side. Far from nurturing studiositas, algorithms redirect the energies of the intellect into every manner of curiositas; far from preparing a multicourse feast, our digital masters function rather like Elliott in E.T., drawing us on with an endless trail of colorful candies. Underfed and unsatisfied, our minds continue to follow the path, munching on nothing, world without end.

Is there an alternative?

Jacobs believes there is. For the community of potential collaborators in thinking is not limited to the living, much less those relatively few living folks who surround each of us. It includes the dead. And how do we commune with the dead? Through books. A library is a kind of mausoleum: it houses the dead in the tombs of their words. We break bread with them, in Auden’s phrase, when we read them. Reading them, we find ourselves inducted into the great conversation that spans every civilization and culture from time immemorial on to the present and into the future. We encounter others who are really and truly other than us.

Go read the rest here.

New essay published: “Be Fearful as Christ Was Fearful"

Over at Mere Orthodoxy, Jake was kind enough to publish a reflection I wrote on life in a pandemic. I actually wrote it all the way back in March, just as Covid was ramping up, when there were all kinds of calls from Christian writers, pastors, and thinkers to "not be afraid" or to be "free from fear." I use St. Maximus to discuss the role of fear in the Christian life, rooted in the presence of natural fear in the life of Christ. It's called "Be Fearful as Christ Was Fearful," and here's a taste of what I'm up to:

In other words, what we see in the Garden is not for show. It is not fantasy or fiction. Christ, because he is truly and naturally human, fears death the way any bodily creature might: for to be destroyed is not good, does not belong to an unfallen world. His humanity recoils from the prospect of the passion, not out of lack of trust in the Father or uncertainty in his vocation, but because he is like unto us in every respect apart from sin. As God with us, he is one of us. And it is only human to shrink before death, even death on a cross.

But Maximus wants us to see that that is not the end of the story, because Christ’s solidarity with us is always redemptive, and so it is here, too. His fear is part of his saving work in that it is exemplary for us. For, far from obstructing his obedience to God, Christ’s natural fear becomes the occasion for it. 'Not my will but thine' is the cry of a heart faithful to God in the presence of fear, not in its absence. It is the cry of courage, which is the virtue that knows the right thing to do, and wills to do it, when disavowal of fear would mean self-deception or recklessness. In this Jesus is our pioneer, the trailblazer of truly human courage, precisely in that moment when fearlessness would be foolish. For the will of the Lord outbids even our rational fears.

In this way, Maximus helps us to see what Christian fear might mean. All of Christ’s action is our instruction, as Aquinas says. Here too: we live as Christ lived, die as he died, suffer as he suffered, fear as he feared. If we are to grieve as those with hope, but still to grieve, so are we to fear as those with faith, but still to fear.

Read the whole thing here.

New essay published: “Sacraments, Technology, and Streaming Worship in a Pandemic"

I've got a new piece published over at Mere Orthodoxy called "Sacraments, Technology, and Streaming Worship in a Pandemic." In it I use the work of Neil Postman and Robert Jenson to think about the meaning and "communicability" of sacramental liturgy via mass media and digital technology, then draw some conclusions for streaming worship online today, separated as we are from public gatherings of Christ's body. I also come down pretty hard against celebrating the Lord's Supper during this unusual time of "social distancing." I hope it's useful for others, even and especially those who disagree. Blessings, and stay safe out there y'all.

Questions for Jake Meador after reading his lovely new book

Jake Meador is one of my favorite writers to read today on the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. (Am I contractually obligated to call him a "young" writer? What are the rules here when you're not sure whether you're older than the young writer in question?) We've yet to meet, but he's been gracious to me over the past few years, posting and soliciting essays I've written for Mere Orthodoxy, which he edits.

I was eager to read his new book, In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World, and I wasn't disappointed. The book will be a boon to a variety of folks, especially pastors, churches, and college students. Indeed, I'm assigning it to one of my classes this fall. Given Meador's politics—a social conservative against racism, an agrarian against abortion, a Christian against the GOP, an evangelical against Trump, a Calvinist against capitalism—his writing makes for nice inroads to conversations with ordinary believers that bypass the partisan binary.

But while I wasn't disappointed, I was surprised by the book. I've been chewing on the reasons for that surprise for the last month. So let me try to boil down my surprise into the form of questions Meador left me with—questions I hope his ongoing work, at Mere O and especially in future books, will continue to grapple with.

1. For whom is this book written? Who is its primary audience? Meador's writing is always clear but it is often pitched "higher," to those who've read the primary sources and know the state of the conversation, and who have the desire or the power to do something about it. The book seems pitched "lower" (not in a pejorative sense), to those who haven't done the reading and aren't familiar with the driving conversations of the day. If so, perhaps the book is meant as a kind of translation or popularization for ordinary Christians, as I suggested above. In that, I think it succeeds; but it was not what I was prepared for.

2. Substantively, what surprised me most was the relative lack of direness in Meador's account of the current civic crisis. Partly a matter of tone, it's more than that too: one doesn't get the sense from the book that American society is an free fall. Sure, things are worse than they could be, but also, things are looking up, or at least, signs of (this-worldly) hope are on the horizon. But this doesn't match what I read in Meador's more regular writing. So just how bad are things? Are we in the midst of a kind of crisis? Or is it less dire than that?

3. Related is the state of the church in the U.S. I had thought, again based on Meador's other writing, that we are currently in a stage of ecclesial emergency. The church's numbers have been declining rapidly and continue to do so; those churches that have changed with the times have apostatized, and those churches that have ostensibly remained orthodox are beset by trials and scandals of a political and sexual nature. But a strikingly sanguine tone characterizes much (not all) of the book's talk of church: the simplicities and ordinary kindnesses of congregational life, etc. Is this just a non-alarmism about an objective emergency situation? Or have I misread Meador? How bad is it, and how bad are our future prospects?

4. Combining the previous two points, perhaps the biggest conceptual gap in the book for me was the relationship between the church and politics. If the church is declining in numbers and the wider culture is secularizing, indeed moving toward a post-Christian hostility to the church, then why continue to presume the ongoing power and influence of the church to effect much of anything in (at least national) politics going forward? There is a sort of running "if...then" momentum in the book, such that "if" X or Y happens within the church or on the part of Christians, "then" A or B may or should or will happen within the culture or the government. But I had thought we'd moved beyond that thinking. What if the church—the faithful, those who worship in parishes and congregations and actively follow Christ (say, 15-20% of the population)—were to be perfectly faithful across the next generation, and American culture and politics simply ignored us? What then? Or am I misunderstanding the nature of the book's vision?

5. By book's end, Meador's cheerful optimism—in one sense an antidote to the hysteria on all sides of cultural commentary today—left me with a vision of non-political politics: witness without agonistes. I had no sense of either the fight I ought to join or the battle from which I ought to retreat; the book describes not so much a field of conflict as a state of affairs in which the good has been leached out of our common life, and those of us who recognize that fact ought to do our best to pour it back in. But is Meador really so optimistic? Does he lack a sense for the conflicts facing our society and Christians therein? I don't think so. So what am I missing?

6. What I want to know (what I was left wondering) is: What is possible, and how do we get there? Does Meador think the "Trump effect" is not so much the ratcheting up of polarization, demonization, racism, reaction, etc., but instead the detonation of past paradigms so that we can imagine, more or less, whatever future we want? The Overton window not only expanded but smashed to smithereens? I doubt he'd put it in quite such extreme terms, but if it's something like that, then what does he (what should we) want at the end of our political and cultural labors? Beyond relative peace, stability, freedom, prosperity, depth of faith, intact families, and the rest. In other words, are we meant to close the book and imagine a radically transformed post-liberal America? Or a small but faithful remnant of Christ's church in the ruins of a decadent, hostile empire? That difference of visions is the ambiguity I felt from start to finish.

7. Put differently once again: Which saint, which option, ought we to choose? Should we opt for Dreher's Benedict Option, strategically withdrawing energy, emotion, time, and resources from political activism in order to shore up the wealth of the tradition and catechize our children for the dark ages? Should we instead follow Jamie Smith's Augustine Option, approaching culture and politics with a holy ambivalence that discriminates between good and evil case by case, refusing alarmist fears for engagement and resistance as the situation requires, without spurning the need for compromise? Or should we choose the Daniel Option, the proposal of Alissa Wilkinson and Robert Joustra, who don't deny the ills of modernity but basically see our time and culture as a benign one, full of signs of progress and opportunity for good, thus requiring our support for and participation in the liberal regime? (We could go on, with saints and options; perhaps Solomon standing for integralism?) I have always thought of Meador as BenOp-adjacent, not quite there but quite close, minus the tenor of Dreher's terror. But In Search of the Common Good, had I never read the author before, would have had me assuming he was somewhere between Smith and Wilkinson.

8. Speaking of saints, let me also mention martyrdom. The lack of an agonistic vision of politics combined with the cultural optimism resulted, in my reading, in a denial of tragedy, an account of political engagement without suffering or loss. I was left wondering what it might mean—not least coming from a person who has written tirelessly about putting principle over winning, means before ends—for the church to follow Meador's vision for Christian sociopolitical witness and still to "lose" or "fail" on the world's terms. What if being faithful means "death," however metaphorical? I'm confident of Meador's response: "Then so be it." But I was surprised by the implicit suggestion in the book that, in general, things will work out. What if things don't work out? What if, in 75 years, the church in America dwindles to one-tenth of the citizenry, despised but ignored, even as a third or more of the population claims the mantle of "Christian" while denying everything Christianity stands for? (Wait, that already sounds too familiar.) Note well, I'm not predicting this future. I'm saying: Christians have grown so used to this country being "theirs," so used to "running the show," to having influence and wielding it, that it is close to impossible for them (for us) to imagine a future in which that is no longer the case. Hence the very real fears of losing that power—fears we have seen manifested in spectacularly wicked ways these last few years (and not only then). What happens once we move beyond those fears to living in that future? Or is that so hypothetical as to be irrelevant to the present time—the spasms of dysfunction visible today signs of nothing seismic or epochal, just the usual bad actors and bad apples? (Answers here bears on answers to numbers two and three above. Just how bad is it?)

9. Shifting gears a bit here, and by way of closing, I sense a disjunction between two modes of thought in Meador. One is the natural, the other the supernatural; let's make their representatives Wendell Berry and St. Augustine. Meador envisions the good life as one in accord with creation, in harmony with the natural world. Hence his emphasis on farming, local community, conservation, the natural family, children, kinship, caring for the elderly, knowing one's neighbors, staying rooted in one place, and so on. This is the moral vision of Port William. Moreover, the natural good life is available, epistemically and otherwise, to all people, not just Christians. Whereas the Augustinian vision, while certainly affirming natural goods and the good of the created order, differs in important respects. The world is fallen, corrupted by sin, and women and men are depraved in their wills, their minds, their hearts, their desires. Driven by disordered love, sinful people neither know nor live in accordance with the highest good or the proper hierarchy of goods under God. They serve idols of every kind. What people need, then, is grace: to cleanse their conscience, heal their hearts, reorder their wills, and guide their lives. Apart from grace they cannot live as their ought nor know how they ought to live. Grace is a necessary condition of the good life, in and after Christ. (Recall too that, for Augustine, as for the catholic tradition after him, not to have children, not to be married, not to serve in civic life is actually the higher form of life in Christ, even if that ideal is not meant for all.) So the question arises: Where does Meador fall between Berry and Augustine here? What exactly is he recommending, and for whom is he recommending it, and on what (epistemic, moral, theological, political) basis? At what point do the theological virtues enter into the natural good life, and when and where and to what extent do they challenge, subvert, or deny aspects of it? And what of our neighbors? Is our concern for their good limited to the natural, or does it extend to the supernatural? If the latter, what social and political shape should that concern take?

That's enough for now. I've presumed too much of your patience, dear reader, as I have Jake's (if he reads this). Lest my questions be misinterpreted, let me be clear that I intend them in a spirit of friendship and of affinity for the book they query, and for the project that book advances. I'm thankful for the book, and I'm eager to see the fruit it bears in the coming years.