fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

The New Conservative Christians

Here’s a fascinating piece about “the new taxonomy of conservative Christians,”  by Thomas Holgrave. Holgrave writes mostly about Evangelicals, but sees a similar trend in post-Boomer Catholics. Basically, he says that while younger adult Christians are more liberal, they defy Boomer expectations by being more interested in liturgical tradition than their parents’ generation: Younger evangelicals […]

Here’s a fascinating piece about “the new taxonomy of conservative Christians,”  by Thomas Holgrave. Holgrave writes mostly about Evangelicals, but sees a similar trend in post-Boomer Catholics. Basically, he says that while younger adult Christians are more liberal, they defy Boomer expectations by being more interested in liturgical tradition than their parents’ generation:

Younger evangelicals who keep the faith are often dissatisfied with elements of their parents’ churches, but they seem to be shifting in a more ’catholic’ direction, toward a more liturgical, roots-oriented Christianity. While their politics may not be those of the Christian Coalition, their religion may actually be more ‘conservative.’

Holgrave says an approach to Christianity that ignores or downplays either Truth or Beauty will not survive:

If evangelical Protestantism has a future, it needs to bring the two together. Theological conservatives must learn to appreciate how the beauty of liturgy and tradition does not distract from authentic Christian belief but rather deepens and confirms it. Similarly, aesthetically-sensible liturgical conservatives need to understand how the beauty they rightly love grows from the same root as traditional Christian theology and ethics. We need young Christians who are both liturgically and theologically conservative.

Much of the division, sin, and confusion in Protestant Christianity today stems, I believe, from a fundamental disconnectedness in the evangelical mind between the order and beauty of the soul and religious belief, and the order and beauty of externals. Each of these ought to promote and confirm the other. Instead, suburban evangelicals tend to deny the influence of externals, and are surprised when their children rebel, sleep around, and abandon the faith.

Beauty strengthens faith. No less, then, does true faith preserve beauty. The order and coherence of traditional Christian liturgy and art depends for its strength on the conviction that what it centers on is true; that God is true, that the Bible is his word, and the church manifests his kingdom in the world. Without these convictions beauty has no reference point and liturgy is a series of empty observances done for the sake of doing. The reason liturgy is attractive to sensitive people is that it actually reflects what is true, and speaks to the listening soul of what is closest to the ground of its being. This is why the mainline churches are in decline. To practice a received liturgy and at the same time deny received Christian truth is eventually a self-defeating occupation.

Read the whole thing. 

Advertisement

Comments

Want to join the conversation?

Subscribe for as little as $5/mo to start commenting on Rod’s blog.

Join Now