While evangelicals punch below their weight in the secular world, they punch far above their weight in the religious world, and we shouldn’t overlook that. In the 1930s no one would have guessed 100 years from now that evangelicalism would be the dominant force in American Christianity, not the fundamentalists, not one of the mainline denominations, not a council-of-churches ecumenical movement, but a small third-way movement splintering off fundamentalism. In terms of money, people, status, any worldly measure, the modern evangelical movement spearheaded by men like Ockenga, Graham, and Henry was way behind the other traditions but they won.
American Christianity in the 1930s had huge variety. There were many large regional-to-national denominations each with distinctive doctrines, histories, and worship styles, but through the decline of American Christianity these distinct movements have consolidated and for the most part consolidated under the evangelical banner. Evangelical ideas on doctrine, church history, and worship are dominant today and have basically erased the other traditions. All the other Christians ended up reading evangelical books, going to evangelical colleges, and following evangelical leaders.
Let me give a personal example of what I mean. I’m a fourth generation Northern Baptist/ABCUSA pastor. I’m deep in that tradition. I serve at a church where my great-grandfather preached and I summer at the old denominational camp-meeting grounds. That said, it’s impossible for me to find contemporary Northern Baptist content/institutions/leaders. In college I joined an evangelical fellowship, for seminary I went to an evangelical school, and when I study biblical commentaries, I use the evangelical ones. I follow evangelicals because my tradition alone can’t cut it.
50 years ago, even 25 years ago, there were denominational institutions, publishers, leaders who you could look to as distinctively in the tradition, but that’s all over. Most ABCUSA churches today are either generically evangelical, generically liberal, or generically black Protestant. The dyed-in-the-wool Northern Baptists are few and far between.
And this is true in all kinds of denominations (from ABCUSA to PCA), most people identify, read, and follow evangelicals rather than any of the other subgroups. But again, looking back at the 1930s, there’s no reason to guess that evangelicals would become the group most Christians read, follow, and identify with rather than say Northern Baptists or Ecumenists or Wesleyans. And now even Catholic churches are doing Bible studies, Episcopalians are doing church plants, Baptists are raising their hands in worship, and Presbyterians aren’t following the regulative principle. In the Christian world everyone is following evangelicals, and the fastest growing churches, the non-denoms, are the most evangelical of all.
So while it’s true that evangelicals aren’t yet respected in the secular world, remember that they ate every other Protestant tradition’s lunch and that’s quite the accomplishment. There's a reason why you're at an evangelical mega-church and not something else.
I agree with the sentiment. Which really comes down to: as an intellectually curious person who likes to read, I wish my values were shared by more people who are interesting to read on topics other than those narrowly centered on my values. Don't we all?
Douthat is a singular talent. I wish the evangelical world would produce more Douthats. But as it stands, the RC world has only produced one Douthat. Deneen is very, very far from being a Douthat, and he is justifiably mostly irrelevant now.
Aaron's space certainly has a lot to offer, in terms of evangelicals worth reading by a broader audience that wants to understand the world. In addition to Aaron himself, I want to highlight Tom Owens in particular, but this is clearly a hobby for him.
Lyman Stone also comes to mind (I think he's a convert to LCMS, which some would distinguish from evangelical, but conservative Protestant in any event). Not so much a cultural critic though, and his essay work is sporadic and heavily paywalled, and he has a combative tone that is actively harmful to his reach. But he nonetheless does unique work for those who want to understand the present moment from a demographic perspective.
I'm concerned that the broader right, secular and religious, is in a moment of being mind-killed, of being hostile to a mode of genuine curiosity towards the world. Hanania has clearly entered a mode of confirmation bias at this point, in which he is an anti-"rightoid" hammer and everything looks like a nail, but a lot of his criticisms of accelerating rightist stupidity are nonetheless valid. He has been an unrelenting critic of Musk's X posting, and I unfortunately have to agree with him that the fact that Musk pivoted right at the same time that he began saying far more stupid things is very disappointing; the right's online ecosystem rewards mendacity and ignorance far more than it ought to, and it has gotten worse.
Your outsider feeling isn't because the culture war part of evangelicalism-- which is pretty timid, in general, and more "I want to escape" than "I want to fight". I'm a culture warrior type myself, but I feel an outsider. It may be that evangelicalism is generally empty of high culture, and even unconscious it could exist. Of course, the rest of society, even of the elite, is moving to that too.
Evangelicals have no organized center. Their organized center is an imaginary center where Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit rule over an invisible church and gathered congregations. Christian Smith can give up on Notre Dame University - at least he knows his Catholic university doesn't measure up to his ideal of collegiality. Evangelicals go to Bible College. They aren't supposed to critique the mainstream to create influence. They are to thunder like prophets against sin, like Charlie Kirk. They preach eleven sermons week for forty years like Charles Spurgeon, always talking about Jesus. They head to the wilderness, away from the mainstream, away from the polis. Missionaries with a great commission. The City of Man is a kingdom of this world. Evangelicals have to be in the world, but they don't have to like it.
Cultural Engagement Evangelicals - where does that leave Charlie Kirk? He had no lack of confidence. Nobody was more culturally engaged than Charlie Kirk. He was shot down like a dog. And the culturally elite danced in the privacy of their dwellings to think he was dead. Create real influence? With them?
I agree and would generally sum up your thesis with this simple question (directed generally, not specifically at Aaron):
What are you providing that I cannot find elsewhere?
The Substacks that I subscribe to (Aaron, FdB, Posnanski, Nate Silver) give me insights and writing that I do not find for free elsewhere. In almost every competitive aspect of life (dating pool, employment, college applications), you can be successful simply by identifying what you offer that is rare. Ross Douthat offers the rare ability to speak on religious issues in a way that the median NYT subscriber finds interesting and religious believers do not find to be insulting.
Even with Aaron, I would say that his newsletters and podcasts are the dead-center of a Venn diagram of religion in America society, gender relations and urban planning (those are the major ones, but he follows whatever he finds interesting). While there are other people who may do a better job of one of those circles, no one else does all three and if someone else does it better, Aaron will cite them and discuss them so that I can read them for myself if I want to. He functions as a super-connector for some disparate issues that I find fascinating.
Most Evangelicals do a terrible job of differentiating themselves and merely offer different ways of making the same point.
This was my strategy in economics academia. I wasn't as smart as a lot of people, but I had a different way of thinking. Whether that worked is an interesting question. It was a "negative beta" strategy, if you know any finance.
Do they have EPC, PCA, or ACNA churches in the Indianapolis region?
While evangelicals punch below their weight in the secular world, they punch far above their weight in the religious world, and we shouldn’t overlook that. In the 1930s no one would have guessed 100 years from now that evangelicalism would be the dominant force in American Christianity, not the fundamentalists, not one of the mainline denominations, not a council-of-churches ecumenical movement, but a small third-way movement splintering off fundamentalism. In terms of money, people, status, any worldly measure, the modern evangelical movement spearheaded by men like Ockenga, Graham, and Henry was way behind the other traditions but they won.
American Christianity in the 1930s had huge variety. There were many large regional-to-national denominations each with distinctive doctrines, histories, and worship styles, but through the decline of American Christianity these distinct movements have consolidated and for the most part consolidated under the evangelical banner. Evangelical ideas on doctrine, church history, and worship are dominant today and have basically erased the other traditions. All the other Christians ended up reading evangelical books, going to evangelical colleges, and following evangelical leaders.
Let me give a personal example of what I mean. I’m a fourth generation Northern Baptist/ABCUSA pastor. I’m deep in that tradition. I serve at a church where my great-grandfather preached and I summer at the old denominational camp-meeting grounds. That said, it’s impossible for me to find contemporary Northern Baptist content/institutions/leaders. In college I joined an evangelical fellowship, for seminary I went to an evangelical school, and when I study biblical commentaries, I use the evangelical ones. I follow evangelicals because my tradition alone can’t cut it.
50 years ago, even 25 years ago, there were denominational institutions, publishers, leaders who you could look to as distinctively in the tradition, but that’s all over. Most ABCUSA churches today are either generically evangelical, generically liberal, or generically black Protestant. The dyed-in-the-wool Northern Baptists are few and far between.
And this is true in all kinds of denominations (from ABCUSA to PCA), most people identify, read, and follow evangelicals rather than any of the other subgroups. But again, looking back at the 1930s, there’s no reason to guess that evangelicals would become the group most Christians read, follow, and identify with rather than say Northern Baptists or Ecumenists or Wesleyans. And now even Catholic churches are doing Bible studies, Episcopalians are doing church plants, Baptists are raising their hands in worship, and Presbyterians aren’t following the regulative principle. In the Christian world everyone is following evangelicals, and the fastest growing churches, the non-denoms, are the most evangelical of all.
So while it’s true that evangelicals aren’t yet respected in the secular world, remember that they ate every other Protestant tradition’s lunch and that’s quite the accomplishment. There's a reason why you're at an evangelical mega-church and not something else.
I agree with the sentiment. Which really comes down to: as an intellectually curious person who likes to read, I wish my values were shared by more people who are interesting to read on topics other than those narrowly centered on my values. Don't we all?
Douthat is a singular talent. I wish the evangelical world would produce more Douthats. But as it stands, the RC world has only produced one Douthat. Deneen is very, very far from being a Douthat, and he is justifiably mostly irrelevant now.
Aaron's space certainly has a lot to offer, in terms of evangelicals worth reading by a broader audience that wants to understand the world. In addition to Aaron himself, I want to highlight Tom Owens in particular, but this is clearly a hobby for him.
Lyman Stone also comes to mind (I think he's a convert to LCMS, which some would distinguish from evangelical, but conservative Protestant in any event). Not so much a cultural critic though, and his essay work is sporadic and heavily paywalled, and he has a combative tone that is actively harmful to his reach. But he nonetheless does unique work for those who want to understand the present moment from a demographic perspective.
I'm concerned that the broader right, secular and religious, is in a moment of being mind-killed, of being hostile to a mode of genuine curiosity towards the world. Hanania has clearly entered a mode of confirmation bias at this point, in which he is an anti-"rightoid" hammer and everything looks like a nail, but a lot of his criticisms of accelerating rightist stupidity are nonetheless valid. He has been an unrelenting critic of Musk's X posting, and I unfortunately have to agree with him that the fact that Musk pivoted right at the same time that he began saying far more stupid things is very disappointing; the right's online ecosystem rewards mendacity and ignorance far more than it ought to, and it has gotten worse.
Your outsider feeling isn't because the culture war part of evangelicalism-- which is pretty timid, in general, and more "I want to escape" than "I want to fight". I'm a culture warrior type myself, but I feel an outsider. It may be that evangelicalism is generally empty of high culture, and even unconscious it could exist. Of course, the rest of society, even of the elite, is moving to that too.
Evangelicals have no organized center. Their organized center is an imaginary center where Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit rule over an invisible church and gathered congregations. Christian Smith can give up on Notre Dame University - at least he knows his Catholic university doesn't measure up to his ideal of collegiality. Evangelicals go to Bible College. They aren't supposed to critique the mainstream to create influence. They are to thunder like prophets against sin, like Charlie Kirk. They preach eleven sermons week for forty years like Charles Spurgeon, always talking about Jesus. They head to the wilderness, away from the mainstream, away from the polis. Missionaries with a great commission. The City of Man is a kingdom of this world. Evangelicals have to be in the world, but they don't have to like it.
Cultural Engagement Evangelicals - where does that leave Charlie Kirk? He had no lack of confidence. Nobody was more culturally engaged than Charlie Kirk. He was shot down like a dog. And the culturally elite danced in the privacy of their dwellings to think he was dead. Create real influence? With them?
I agree and would generally sum up your thesis with this simple question (directed generally, not specifically at Aaron):
What are you providing that I cannot find elsewhere?
The Substacks that I subscribe to (Aaron, FdB, Posnanski, Nate Silver) give me insights and writing that I do not find for free elsewhere. In almost every competitive aspect of life (dating pool, employment, college applications), you can be successful simply by identifying what you offer that is rare. Ross Douthat offers the rare ability to speak on religious issues in a way that the median NYT subscriber finds interesting and religious believers do not find to be insulting.
Even with Aaron, I would say that his newsletters and podcasts are the dead-center of a Venn diagram of religion in America society, gender relations and urban planning (those are the major ones, but he follows whatever he finds interesting). While there are other people who may do a better job of one of those circles, no one else does all three and if someone else does it better, Aaron will cite them and discuss them so that I can read them for myself if I want to. He functions as a super-connector for some disparate issues that I find fascinating.
Most Evangelicals do a terrible job of differentiating themselves and merely offer different ways of making the same point.
This was my strategy in economics academia. I wasn't as smart as a lot of people, but I had a different way of thinking. Whether that worked is an interesting question. It was a "negative beta" strategy, if you know any finance.
Thanks! I'm doing my best to provide unique value, because otherwise people are not going to read and subscribe.