Young Men Converting to Eastern Orthodoxy

[pilgrimmum]

Recently, I heard about young men going Catholic or EO. Part of the reason seems to be that these traditional churches are safe spaces for their masculinity, and indeed honor their masculinity, whereas much of the culture is hostile to it (think "toxic masculinity"). I think it is sad. I wish someone would have pointed them to a WELS church or a conservative episcopal denomination. Praying for them.

I would say it is due to the massive and very slick marketing online by the RC Church and Eastern Orthodox advertising their 'wares' so to speak. Many YouTube shorts n vids are being used to undermine Protestant orthodox teaching as well. The internet is literally flooded with pro Roman Catholic propaganda. Just try to Google something Protestant and pages of anti Protestant stuff comes up first before anything of biblical substance. The RC Church run Google n YouTube I'm thinking. Also with the old fashioned 'reverence' and old hymns missing from current day modern churches there seems to be a lot missing now from the modern churches.

 

[darrellmaurina]

I have not seen evidence of a flow, but only a trickle. A noisy trickle yet a trickle nonetheless.

The flow toward Roman Catholicism in conservative intellectual circles is not just a flow but a flood.

There are reasons why not just most but nearly all of the conservative Justices on the Supreme Court in recent years have been Roman Catholic. Publications like First Things and National Review are not entirely Catholic but a Catholic approach to scholarship and intellectual life is either an underlying assumption that isn't spoken because it's assumed, or is considered the default view with other conservative approaches being acceptable.

I don't think those of us in the Reformed world, where we never lost high standards of academic training for our pastors and therefore kept an emphasis on Christian colleges and seminaries, always realize just how bad things got for several generations in the evangelical world with anti-intellectualism becoming the norm, many conservative seminaries and colleges being unaccredited, and even with the accredited schools, many of them being really quite bad in their scholarship and basic academic standards.

That's changing. Men like Al Mohler are working to fix the problems in the Southern Baptist Convention and its related colleges and seminaries. Given time, and the major role of the SBC in American evangelicalism, we will probably see improvements in a generation or so as men who are now in college and seminary go on to graduate school, become junior faculty, and start publishing books and articles.

But things take time. Not just one but several generations of young evangelical men and young evangelical pastors were given an education that was -- at best -- at a Bible college level. They simply were not prepared to do the sort of graduate level work that would be expected at even a second- or third-tier masters or doctoral program.

Roman Catholics stepped in and filled gaps that evangelicals were unprepared and often unable to fill.

The result, not surprisingly, has been that people like Vice President Vance end up as conservative Catholics and not as conservative Protestants.

I need to add here that I'm an outlier in the conservative Reformed world on valuing ministers who didn't go to seminary and promoting alternative methods of training for pastors. I value formal academic training for pastors, and a studied ministry, but I know the reality of small church life in rural America. I know there are reasons why the SBC won its war against liberalism, but most Presbyterian and Reformed denominations lost, and a key factor was that the "untrained small church rural pastors," despite not going to seminary and in some cases not having even a Bible college level of training, were dead set against liberalism and provided the necessary anger that galvanized the laity to fight back against the "overeducated elites" who had taken over too many of the Southern Baptist seminaries and colleges. None of what I am saying should be perceived as an attack against godly men serving small churches without formal academic training, or with limited training. American Presbyterian and Reformed churches lost the American frontier back in the early 1800s because we insisted on an unrealistically high academic standard and couldn't provide anywhere close to enough pastors, leading to the Baptists and Methodists taking over in places where Reformed people had moved but couldn't get pastors.

We need alternative methods to prepare pastors for small churches who can't realistically go to seminary. But we can't let that lead to a collapse in academic standards at colleges and seminaries, or we're going to continue to see what we've seen today with the dominance of Roman Catholics in conservative intellectual life. It needs to be both/and, not either/or -- a two-track system for training pastors in small churches while maintaining college and seminaries that do their jobs for those who can attend them.

 

[darrellmaurina]

I think the flow toward RC and EO is indicative of where our society is. I grew up in an environment in which tradition referred to things usually less than 200-year-old Arminian rubbish, emotional songs with little substance, superficial theology, and no real link to the past. I think that absolutely led me to Presbyterianism, and it makes sense why historic Protestant as well as RC and EO grow because of it. They all say, "we have something ancient and distinct" in a way that evangelicalism doesn't.

BINGO! Any idea why I like talking about the Waldensian heritage of people who were essentially Calvinists before Calvin, and who -- literally -- introduced Calvin to sovereign grace when he was a student in law school living in a boarding house owned by a Waldensian cloth merchant?

Some of that is because I'm Italian and I like reminding people that it is possible to be Italian and Protestant, and that not only did Italian Protestantism not come via foreign missionaries trying to bring a "foreign faith" to the Italian peninsula, but dates back at least to 1173 and quite possibly to the 800s.

Reformed people can, quite correctly, point out that the most important parts of what we believe is what was taught explicitly all the way back to St. Augustine, and implicitly long before that. When I talk with my Roman Catholic friends, most of them quickly figure out that I'm not a "rootless evangelical" who cares nothing about church history. The same could be said of many other Calvinists. But sadly, the average frustrated young evangelical is far more likely to find a conservative Catholic than a conservative Calvinist who can disciple him and help him find roots.

 

[Phil D.]

Some of that is because I'm Italian and I like reminding people that it is possible to be Italian and Protestant,

I've seen people be surprised when they learn such esteemed Reformed theologians as Peter Martyr Vermigli, Jerome Zanchi, and Francis Turretin were all of Italian heritage (although they flourished in Protestant areas of Europe).

 

[Ploutos]

The flow toward Roman Catholicism in conservative intellectual circles is not just a flow but a flood.

There are reasons why not just most but nearly all of the conservative Justices on the Supreme Court in recent years have been Roman Catholic. Publications like First Things and National Review are not entirely Catholic but a Catholic approach to scholarship and intellectual life is either an underlying assumption that isn't spoken because it's assumed, or is considered the default view with other conservative approaches being acceptable.

I don't think those of us in the Reformed world, where we never lost high standards of academic training for our pastors and therefore kept an emphasis on Christian colleges and seminaries, always realize just how bad things got for several generations in the evangelical world with anti-intellectualism becoming the norm, many conservative seminaries and colleges being unaccredited, and even with the accredited schools, many of them being really quite bad in their scholarship and basic academic standards.

That's changing. Men like Al Mohler are working to fix the problems in the Southern Baptist Convention and its related colleges and seminaries. Given time, and the major role of the SBC in American evangelicalism, we will probably see improvements in a generation or so as men who are now in college and seminary go on to graduate school, become junior faculty, and start publishing books and articles.

But things take time. Not just one but several generations of young evangelical men and young evangelical pastors were given an education that was -- at best -- at a Bible college level. They simply were not prepared to do the sort of graduate level work that would be expected at even a second- or third-tier masters or doctoral program.

Roman Catholics stepped in and filled gaps that evangelicals were unprepared and often unable to fill.

The result, not surprisingly, has been that people like Vice President Vance end up as conservative Catholics and not as conservative Protestants.

I need to add here that I'm an outlier in the conservative Reformed world on valuing ministers who didn't go to seminary and promoting alternative methods of training for pastors. I value formal academic training for pastors, and a studied ministry, but I know the reality of small church life in rural America. I know there are reasons why the SBC won its war against liberalism, but most Presbyterian and Reformed denominations lost, and a key factor was that the "untrained small church rural pastors," despite not going to seminary and in some cases not having even a Bible college level of training, were dead set against liberalism and provided the necessary anger that galvanized the laity to fight back against the "overeducated elites" who had taken over too many of the Southern Baptist seminaries and colleges. None of what I am saying should be perceived as an attack against godly men serving small churches without formal academic training, or with limited training. American Presbyterian and Reformed churches lost the American frontier back in the early 1800s because we insisted on an unrealistically high academic standard and couldn't provide anywhere close to enough pastors, leading to the Baptists and Methodists taking over in places where Reformed people had moved but couldn't get pastors.

We need alternative methods to prepare pastors for small churches who can't realistically go to seminary. But we can't let that lead to a collapse in academic standards at colleges and seminaries, or we're going to continue to see what we've seen today with the dominance of Roman Catholics in conservative intellectual life. It needs to be both/and, not either/or -- a two-track system for training pastors in small churches while maintaining college and seminaries that do their jobs for those who can attend them.

The depth of my dislike for the Roman system will be evident in saying this, but I think there's another aspect to this puzzle. We live in a consumeristic post-Christian society that wants to ditch Christian commitments but maintain parts of the Christian tradition that are convenient and likeable. Evangelicalism is one manifestation of this, and Catholicism is another flavor of this syndrome. Would you like your Christian-lite moralistic deistic brand of political values to have some more intellectual and ritualistic rigor, yet still be devoid of actual gospel truth? Well we here at the Church Of Rome (TM) have got something for you!

I am thankful that he have Trump and Vance in the White House instead of Harris/Walz (shudder), but this new administration is highlighting, in a very overt way, the reality of our post-Christian status as a nation. Vance's conservative values may portend well for the fabric of our society, but how seriously should I take his faith when he is married to a practicing Hindu? His faith may be more than an inch deep, but I doubt it's as deep as his prior standing commitments to generic, theologically vague conservative values. Barrett's faith commitments may run a little deeper, but where do her faith commitments point? Do they make it past the high places at Rome to God himself?

There's a reason people will look anywhere and everywhere to fill the void, except to Scripture itself. In that respect, evanjellyfishism, Romanism, Eastern Heterodoxy, and Hinduism are in one sense all the same, offering the promise of filling the spiritual void without requiring their followers to embrace meaningful substantive truth.

 

[No Other Name]

We live in a consumeristic post-Christian society that wants to ditch Christian commitments but maintain parts of the Christian tradition that are convenient and likeable. Evangelicalism is one manifestation of this, and Catholicism is another flavor of this syndrome. Would you like your Christian-lite moralistic deistic brand of political values to have some more intellectual and ritualistic rigor, yet still be devoid of actual gospel truth? Well we here at the Church Of Rome (TM) have got something for you!

As a lone 1689'er on an island surrounded by papists teaching in a politically conservative Catholic high school, this was well-said and gets to the heart of the truth of the matter.

Thank you, brother.

 

[darrellmaurina]

I've seen people be surprised when they learn such esteemed Reformed theologians as Peter Martyr Vermigli, Jerome Zanchi, and Francis Turretin were all of Italian heritage (although they flourished in Protestant areas of Europe).

We're on the same page.

If I were doing church planting in Italy, I'd be emphasizing the Reformed heritage in Italy and pointing out that sovereign grace is not a foreign import from America. How does something like "Vermigli Reformed Church of Lucca" sound?

The irony is that, due to the widespread recognition in Italian conservative circles that conservative American evangelicals and conservative American Catholics have a good track record of working together on pro-life issues and related "culture war" matters, I'd probably have less trouble from Roman Catholics in Italy who take their faith seriously than at any time in Italian history since... well... about the time of Vermigli. The main problems would come from liberal Italian Protestants and liberal Italian Catholics since secular Italians largely ignore church matters.

A little side point that may be interesting: the equivalent to the Senate majority leader in the Italian Senate, a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's "Brothers of Italy" party, is a conservative Waldensian who has helped to produce a modern Italian translation of the Genevan Psalter and is posting it online. Senator Lucio Malan actually does some of the singing himself. Who could have expected in Vermigli's time, or even two generations ago, that one of the most important figures in the Italian **CONSERVATIVE** political party would be a Waldensian who is confessionally Reformed? Sadly, Protestantism has been identified for a long time with liberalism and anti-clericalism in Italy because too many Protestants were people who had left the Roman Catholic Church and joined Protestant churches for the wrong reasons.

I don't want to make things look better than they are. The Waldensian synod in Italy, like most of the older mainline denominations of Europe, went liberal long ago, but as is common in Europe, most of the Waldensian conservatives have refused to leave and have said, "We were here long before your false doctrines came in, we're not leaving, and since your liberal churches are dying, we'll be here after your children have stopped going to church and your church buildings have been sold for apartments or restaurants." (Side point: the Latin American sister synod for the Waldensians also has problems, but is better than the main synod of the "mother church.")

This has only distant relevance to the topic of people leaving evangelicalism for Eastern Orthodoxy, but there is a tie. In many European countries, evangelicals are known for happy-clappy worship, low educational standards, and a near-total disrespect for the Christian heritage of Europe. People look at evangelical churches and say, "Is what they do even a church? It looks more like a dance club or a rock concert." We've gotten used in the United States to the excesses of the charismatic movement and of broad evangelicalism, but in much of Europe, even secularists who have little interest in biblical faith see evangelical churches and say, "This is a foreign import from those crazy Americans. Steer clear."

Being able to present the Reformed faith as something with VERY deep roots in the heritage of a nation is a huge plus for Reformed people in some (not all, but some) of Europe.

 

[darrellmaurina]

I am thankful that he have Trump and Vance in the White House instead of Harris/Walz (shudder), but this new administration is highlighting, in a very overt way, the reality of our post-Christian status as a nation. Vance's conservative values may portend well for the fabric of our society, but how seriously should I take his faith when he is married to a practicing Hindu? His faith may be more than an inch deep, but I doubt it's as deep as his prior standing commitments to generic, theologically vague conservative values. Barrett's faith commitments may run a little deeper, but where do her faith commitments point? Do they make it past the high places at Rome to God himself?

We partly agree, but I'd want to make some qualifications.

I read Vance's book long before he became a conservative darling. I was telling Reformed people many years ago, "READ THIS! He's talking about Appalachia, not the Ozarks, but if you want to understand the context in which I live and work, he describes it perfectly -- right along with the Winter's Bone movie about how drugs have devastated white rural poor communities, not just the Ozarks but all over rural America."

His marriage to a Hindu happened during a period when he had abandoned the form of Christianity he had seen growing up, which included some of the worst forms of rural Appalachian folk evangelicalism. As a friend in the Catholic clergy has pointed out when asked that question, "In our Catholic faith, marriage is a sacrament and is permanent. When you marry someone, you don't get to leave because you join the church; the church tells you what you need to do to raise your children in the faith and witness to your unbelieving spouse."

Kind of hard to argue with that, apart from the sacramental nature of marriage, but most conservative Reformed people would say pretty much the same thing to Vance if he had joined one of our churches with a non-Christian wife who he married during a period when he rejected the faith.

As for Justice Amy Coney Barrett, I know some of her former students at Notre Dame Law School. Without divulging private conversations, I think it's a fair summary that the main question people raise about her is not "Is she a believing Christian?" but rather, "Why, as an obvious believer, is she still in the Roman Catholic Church?"

That's a fair question. The answer appears to be mostly that she believes the Roman Catholic Church has a clear commitment to the pro-life cause, and secondarily, she sees the chaos of American evangelicalism and thinks it makes no sense to leave a church with problems for American evangelicalism that can't figure out what it believes. Her primary experience with evangelicalism is in its charismatic form, and she has valid reasons to say that the charismatics do not have a solid foundation for what they believe, and even the good parts of their beliefs are not solidly grounded.

If the main alternatives to the Roman Catholic Church that someone sees are Appalachian folk religion and the American charismatic movement .... well.... let's just say I'm glad I'm Reformed and those aren't my only choices.

 

[Ploutos]

We partly agree, but I'd want to make some qualifications.

I read Vance's book long before he became a conservative darling. I was telling Reformed people many years ago, "READ THIS! He's talking about Appalachia, not the Ozarks, but if you want to understand the context in which I live and work, he describes it perfectly -- right along with the Winter's Bone movie about how drugs have devastated white rural poor communities, not just the Ozarks but all over rural America."

His marriage to a Hindu happened during a period when he had abandoned the form of Christianity he had seen growing up, which included some of the worst forms of rural Appalachian folk evangelicalism. As a friend in the Catholic clergy has pointed out when asked that question, "In our Catholic faith, marriage is a sacrament and is permanent. When you marry someone, you don't get to leave because you join the church; the church tells you what you need to do to raise your children in the faith and witness to your unbelieving spouse."

Kind of hard to argue with that, apart from the sacramental nature of marriage, but most conservative Reformed people would say pretty much the same thing to Vance if he had joined one of our churches with a non-Christian wife who he married during a period when he rejected the faith.

As for Justice Amy Coney Barrett, I know some of her former students at Notre Dame Law School. Without divulging private conversations, I think it's a fair summary that the main question people raise about her is not "Is she a believing Christian?" but rather, "Why, as an obvious believer, is she still in the Roman Catholic Church?"

That's a fair question. The answer appears to be mostly that she believes the Roman Catholic Church has a clear commitment to the pro-life cause, and secondarily, she sees the chaos of American evangelicalism and thinks it makes no sense to leave a church with problems for American evangelicalism that can't figure out what it believes. Her primary experience with evangelicalism is in its charismatic form, and she has valid reasons to say that the charismatics do not have a solid foundation for what they believe, and even the good parts of their beliefs are not solidly grounded.

If the main alternatives to the Roman Catholic Church that someone sees are Appalachian folk religion and the American charismatic movement .... well.... let's just say I'm glad I'm Reformed and those aren't my only choices.

Thanks for those insights, Darrell. I probably need to get Vance's book and read it.

As for Justice Barrett, that story bears a rough analogue to a now-deceased dear friend of mine, the one Roman Catholic that I would consider with great certainty to have been a believer. After she described her upbringing in a non-religious home and her exposure to sterile moralistic Baptist theology, the move to Roman Catholicism made sense. Ultimately, the Lord only knows, but my friendship with her made me very eager to see people introduced early in life to the riches of Reformed theology (as well as a vehement opponent of the corporeal presence - that one backfired on her lol).

 

[darrellmaurina]

Thanks for those insights, Darrell. I probably need to get Vance's book and read it.

As for Justice Barrett, that story bears a rough analogue to a now-deceased dear friend of mine, the one Roman Catholic that I would consider with great certainty to have been a believer. After she described her upbringing in a non-religious home and her exposure to sterile moralistic Baptist theology, the move to Roman Catholicism made sense. Ultimately, the Lord only knows, but my friendship with her made me very eager to see people introduced early in life to the riches of Reformed theology (as well as a vehement opponent of the corporeal presence - that one backfired on her lol).

We're on the same page.