The 5-fold offices of ministry by the Church (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers) are best funded by denominations, because most churches only fund 1 or 2 offices: pastors/local teachers, not academic teachers/theologians. Non-denominational churches that choose to remain non-denominational should fund all 5 offices through para-church organizations.
Apostle means sent one, or ambassador - as in cross-cultural missionaries to another ethnos (ethno-linguistic group) who plant churches and church networks.
Prophets in the OT often showed Israel how its government & society didn't measure up to God's will - it was partly political. Isaiah was a member of the political class who prophesied to the political class.
In the decline of denominations since the 1960s, even churches that have a network or denomination tend to give the minimum to their denomination. But they don't necessarily send the savings to a para-church organization either.
Since it's hard to get anyone excited about giving to denominations, I've concluded that the only way to fund the other offices of the church is to recommend to people that they send their tithes and offerings to parachurch organizations, so that it isn't wasted on the town's 20th church building or the town's 20th "pastor."
God said bring the tithes into My storehouse. The storehouse God referred to was a single storehouse in the Temple in Jerusalem, intended to fund all the ministries of the nation, not just pastoral care and worship buildings. Not just the priestly (Cohen) clan within the tribe of Levi, but all the Levites.
Just a footnote that there is a significant school of RC theology, the "Communio school," that is positioned as distinct from neo-Thomism. This book review gives a good overview:
The Thomistic Institute has a formidable lecture program, many of which are published in podcast form. Not sure if there is a Protestant equivalent, but many of the talks are of interest to other Christians as well. For example, today, May 8, Karin Öberg, astrophysicist at Harvard, lectures in NYC on "Overcoming the Science and Religion Divide."
Very much resonate with you on this. I was alway interested in philosophy and Metaphysics while being raised in a fairly fundamental faith - Seventh Day Adventist- and my greatest life regret is not being able to share the insights that are gleaned from a life of truth-seeking because the church has no room for the deep questions. They make foolish preventable mistakes and demonstrate the universal wisdom That when you stop seeking, you stop knocking on the door, you lose connection with Truth. “Ask and ye shall receive
“ has an obvious obverse that if you stop asking, you stop receiving.
My intellectual heroes are Jacques Ellul and Josiah Royce but the good are obscured in this day and age.
There are many evangelical Protestant circles that at least code as anti-intellectual, using interpretations of Scriptural shibboleths like "child-like faith", "confounding the wise", and the like to justify quashing intellectual inquiry.
And I've mentioned this before--the various branches of Protestantism have their own "magisteria", whether they are willing to admit it or not, and some of them have strict guardrails against some kinds of intellectual inquiry. These magisteria run the gamut from the most progressive Mainline to the most conservative Evangelical, with somewhat predictable results.
C.S. Lewis is highly spoken of in many Evangelical circles, but there are also a not-insignificant number of them who consider him to be a heretic because of something he said here or there. And even his fans wouldn't dare to do apologetics like him, probably for fear of that.
This is spot on. I am at least a generation older the Rev. Dr. Cooper but would agree. I arrived at university from a small-town Baptist background, but strangely for a small rural community we had an amazing scholar and thinker as a pastor. On one hand my moral framework was the pious lives of elderly saints - farmers and miners who took their religion seriously and joyously and on the other, a former seminary professor who wanted to return to parish work. Thanks to his guidance I read reformation era to 19th century theologians and commentaries and began to work through the multi-volumes of the ante-Nicaean church fathers. On arriving at college, I sought out the Christian groups and left disgusted. Campus Crusade for Christ offered no intellectual support against the hammering my world view was taking in the classroom at a mid-teir secular state college, and no support for the moral world that was being attacked in the social world that was so different from my own upbringing. The Lutherans were a presence on campus, and they had a big bowl of nothing - (ELCA), the Catholics had lousy singing nun music, and priests who I suspect were active homosexuals with nothing but be-nice, liberal protestant vibes and their bad liturgy; it was a shock - my faith faltered badly. I returned to my reading independently and found a few bosom friends and muddled through. I wanted to be a historian, but advisors who had figured out I was a conservative and a Christian tried to drive me away from the profession into the liberal protestant ministry, because people like me shouldn't be in academia to quote one of my professors, but with my mind and my intellectual gifts I would make a great {liberal} pastor. There was no subcultural eco-system in this era just before the full-blown birth of the internet to glom onto. I left and focused my life on a trade and church music. I saw my Baptist tradition collapse in the following years and became an Episcopalian, though I am confessional and conservative as the day is long. As a classically trained organist, I would say the prospect was even worse as a church musician. The arts are treated even worse by the conservative Protestant church than the life of the mind. For other friends, more gifted and driven than me, a few found a way forward, most gave up and ended up in business, some left the church altogether, others became liberals or Catholics. I think people should heed what Jordan argues.
As a intellectually curious believer I appreciate this. As an electronics professional three decades ago I made a commitment to the scriptures and rational defense of Christianity. I thought it was reasonable that knowledge of my creator had a legitimately equal demand on my intellect as my career.
Like C. S. Lewis I have some of my most spiritually profound moments, when through theological study I apprehend something new about Jesus.
-recent (7 years) convert to Lutheran, reasoned defender of the faith.
The great thing is to get evangelicals arguing with each other. They are too "nice", too feminine. But what pastor wants to do that? Or to have his youth group doing it?
College is the place to focus on, though. That is a place to argue and learn.
Jordan Cooper's life and actions speak better than when he writes things like this. Yes, the Protestant Intellectual Apparatus was stolen by the 1920's, reference Machen. Yes, what is left is uninspiring and controlled by petty theological tribes. But c'mon, such was it always for real intellectuals. The institutions were not exactly throwing positions and money at Kierkegaard. Nobody is reading any of the institutional academics today, let alone 10 years after they can't get you a tenure track position. When Cooper realized some of that, he took some real action. He has a real chance to be read after he's gone. He's his own person. But that really requires putting down petty grievances like this - which are completely understandable - and writing that intellectual project. It might not even be writing anymore, although I tend to think intellectuals require writing. Institutions move and build up around ideas that can't be moved. Around cornerstones laid.
Why do we choose a particular church (assuming Creedal - Apostles/Nicene/Chalcedon) 5 reasons I can see:
1) Family tradition/I grew up here
2) Locality/Culture (a la SBC in Bible Belt)
3) Geographical proximity (especially in rural locations)
4) Friendly people
5) Doctrinally correct people (rarely, if ever, does this coincide with point 4)
5) Most correct church doctrine (See PCUSA/PCA/OPC)
6) Best pastor (relates to point 6. Change of pastor results in a complete reevaluation.)
7) History
All of these reasons can factor into one's decision regarding church membership. I'm sure there are others I'm missing (financial health/affluence of local church body, worship style, other personal reasons). I have seen them all in practice, and been pushed towards a church based on any and all of them. Your arguments key towards only one of these reasons, Most Correct Doctrine. Yes, this is important, but is it most important? Especially considering point 5, where the people may or may not care about the doctrine. Some may even actively reject it, but sure, it's possible I might join a church because the historic church has the right doctrine (See Redeemed Zoomer/PCUSA). Is this going to lead to a healthy and vibrant spiritual body of believers, or a feeling of intense loneliness?
My guess is that many of the people that enter the river do so not purely for doctrinal reasons, but because they've seen the various dynamics carried out and see that they all fluctuate over time. The one thing that Rome has going for it is history. Yes, there are crazy popes, crazy catholics, crazy priests, crazy proclamations, and crazy doctrines. But how much do these really matter to the individual? At some point, it's reasonable to throw up one's hands, point to #8 (history and unity), and just make the best of it...knowing that all of these other points are shifting sand throughout one's life.
Personally, I really like Lutheran doctrine, but worship at an Evangelical Free (essentially SBC) church, alongside devoted believers and a faithful pastor. I would change a great many things, but I must make the best decision for me and for my family in my given place. When something changes, I will have to reevaluate, unless I am all-in on point #1 (family tradition). This is the American Way. But it's completely reasonable to punt, and I see this as a driver of many RCC moves.
The Protestant habitus of individualism coupled with revival populism means that anti-institutionalism is coupled with anti-intellectualism. Many evangelicals have a truncated gospel (fall/redemption) versus a four-chapter gospel (creation/fall/redemption/restoration) which makes the life of the mind unnecessary or a threat. Added to this thoughtful analysis would be a study of evangelicals who have become Anglican, which doesn't provide a solution for funding but does provide a place for a soft landing theologically.
"Rome also allows for far more institutional laxity than I think is appropriate for a church, especially on matters related to the authority of Scripture."
The Patriarchs of Rome are always quoting scripture in their speeches and encyclicals. The priests are always quoting scripture in their homilies. During the Catholic mass there are 3 readings before communion. From the O.T. the N.T and the Gospels. The lords prayer, the Our Father, is recited every mass before communion. The communion prayers are taken from the last supper. Sacred Scripture is a very important part of Catholic theology. But the Church has more to offer than just the Bible, as it was along with the E.O. Churches, the first Church born on Pentacost. As such their is a direct line of episcopal succession with the Apostles, the first Bishops and thus maintains the Sacred Tradition as passed down by them. The magisterium simply catologues the debates of sacred scriptures and the sacred traditions of the Church for all the faithful to reference.
I largely agree with the concern, but I think even framing this as “Protestantism’s” institutional problem creates a problem of its own. Who exactly is included under “Protestantism”? Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptists, Pentecostals? Do we include mainline liberals who have abandoned orthodoxy? Do we include groups that are historically adjacent but heretical, such as Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses? The category is doing a lot of work before the argument even begins.
There have been efforts to create broader theological venues among Protestants. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals comes to mind. But what you are describing is more than a venue for theological discussion. It is a way to engage the public mind, academia, law, and institutional life. That is much harder because there simply is no general Protestant consensus comparable to what Rome can project institutionally.
But even there, Rome’s institutional advantage is not quite what its apologists often claim. Rome has a kind of flexible institutional theology that allows one priest to support LGBT revisionism while another insists the Church could never permit it. Rome often functions like a deep foam. If you can touch the Church at one point, you can call yourself Roman Catholic, and few will seriously harass you.
Catholic Answers and similar apologists create an illusion of Roman cohesion by pointing to the Magisterium, but they often ignore the ways places like Boston College, Notre Dame, the Church in Germany, and countless others use Jesuitical casuistry to undermine or evade supposedly settled truths. The “cohesion” is often more rhetorical than actual.
The real institutional benefit Rome provides is that it has enough mass, money, and prestige to support intellectuals in academia, law, and public life, often through Thomistic categories. But the average Roman Catholic adherent is not especially concerned with whether those intellectuals are devout, orthodox, or even particularly Roman in practice. The institution is large enough to absorb contradiction.
Protestantism has had an institutional problem since the mainline went liberal and the universities and elite structures ceased to operate within a broadly Protestant framework. Earlier Protestant influence was not always the result of a carefully organized institutional strategy. It was often simply the case that Protestants inhabited elite structures and shared a broadly common Protestant moral and theological world. Roman Catholics felt that enough to build parochial schools as a counterweight.
That said, Nathan Hatch’s work reminds us that even early American Protestantism was never a neat theological or intellectual establishment in which all Protestants felt at home. Baptists and other groups often kicked hard against older establishments. So it is not as though there was ever one clean Protestant institutional project waiting to be recovered.
Even a coalition between confessional Reformed and confessional Lutherans would be difficult to sustain institutionally. The old polemics over Christology, the communication of attributes, and the sacraments are not minor intramural differences. They have implications beyond sacramentology, and sparks would fly quickly if one tried to build a shared theological-philosophical institution at any depth.
Finally, I think “Protestantism” only has this problem in the acute sense when we are talking about certain intellectuals. As much as it can seem like Rome is gaining all the bright young minds, far more people still leave Rome than convert to it. The problem becomes more emotionally pressing when we define the “brightest” as the particular kind of person most tempted by Roman intellectual aesthetics. Perhaps the Lord sees these things differently. Something about camels, needles, and rich men comes to mind.
I say that as a Roman Catholic convert to the Reformed faith. Those who go to Rome really do need to leave a good portion of their mind at the door to accept Rome’s claims about its magisterium. Spend time in Counter-Reformation history and Jesuitical casuistry, and you will see that Rome’s claims have not changed so much as they have been endlessly repackaged. The only thing ancient about many of these arguments is that they keep being retreaded with the illusion of antiquity, and many accept them because Rome says they should.
As a person who grew up in the Reformed tradition and holds a degree from Wheaton College, I find that the anti-intellectualism and the pressures to confirm to commonly-held right/wrong positions within a particular church community are found everywhere. As a pianist, I have played for many different Prostestant demnominations, and while the proscriptions and suspicions are more encompassing in the more fundamentalist congregations. The Need to „think like the rest of us” is in all of them. If the majority of a Sunday School class decides that this why Paul wrote a particular rule to a church, then it is a Bibli command. Any thought that the rule might relate to social practices and beliefs of that time period are rejected—as heretical.
For me, the focus on doctrinally non-controversial ideas for group acceptance is suffocating. Nor do I like the idea that the Gospel of Jesus is so fragile that it cannot tolerate new ways to understand it. I care about communal worship deeply, but I find that the only way to maintain my freedom of study and experience with Biblical writings is to visit from church to church and stay far away from active church service because it inevitably becomes political. Sad, really.
The initial comments are essential to understanding why the last three conditions endure. I came across this same observation and evidence in the literature on Exvangelicals and Non-verts: most people don't convert out of theological conviction but social convenience. Theology fanatics are rare in the wild and most people don't find the distinction between Presbyterian and Methodist or between Episcopal and Catholic to be a deal-breaker. This has been true since the 70's, and I have the receipts for those who want to challenge this claim.
But this is why I'm not optimistic about Protestant clerical leadership suddenly "getting it" and reversing their course. We have people who are selected by their specific interest in theology trying to address the loss of people from their denominations who aren't particularly interested in it through more appeals to theology. To a young scholar, the arguments of their Catholic major professor who is working on the same kind of project are far more enticing than the recent seminary graduate at the University denominational association who answers field-specific concerns with appeals to 16th Century theological disputes. Let's not reduce these concerns to venal desire for positions and appointments, but recognize the role of motivated reasoning and how the Protestant ministry aren't even speaking the same language as Catholic scholars.
This was a problem even 50 years ago, Christian student arrived at university and the predominant faith communities providing outreach were Roman Catholic or Baptist. What did the lonely Episcopalian or Lutheran student looking for a spiritual connection to others do?
The same situation apparently continues on many campuses today.
Outreach to students isn’t difficult, but it takes recognition of the need and a plan to incorporate students in parish life.
The 5-fold offices of ministry by the Church (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers) are best funded by denominations, because most churches only fund 1 or 2 offices: pastors/local teachers, not academic teachers/theologians. Non-denominational churches that choose to remain non-denominational should fund all 5 offices through para-church organizations.
Apostle means sent one, or ambassador - as in cross-cultural missionaries to another ethnos (ethno-linguistic group) who plant churches and church networks.
Prophets in the OT often showed Israel how its government & society didn't measure up to God's will - it was partly political. Isaiah was a member of the political class who prophesied to the political class.
In the decline of denominations since the 1960s, even churches that have a network or denomination tend to give the minimum to their denomination. But they don't necessarily send the savings to a para-church organization either.
Since it's hard to get anyone excited about giving to denominations, I've concluded that the only way to fund the other offices of the church is to recommend to people that they send their tithes and offerings to parachurch organizations, so that it isn't wasted on the town's 20th church building or the town's 20th "pastor."
God said bring the tithes into My storehouse. The storehouse God referred to was a single storehouse in the Temple in Jerusalem, intended to fund all the ministries of the nation, not just pastoral care and worship buildings. Not just the priestly (Cohen) clan within the tribe of Levi, but all the Levites.
Just a footnote that there is a significant school of RC theology, the "Communio school," that is positioned as distinct from neo-Thomism. This book review gives a good overview:
https://firstthings.com/ratzinger-in-the-whirlwind/
The Thomistic Institute has a formidable lecture program, many of which are published in podcast form. Not sure if there is a Protestant equivalent, but many of the talks are of interest to other Christians as well. For example, today, May 8, Karin Öberg, astrophysicist at Harvard, lectures in NYC on "Overcoming the Science and Religion Divide."
https://thomisticinstitute.org/events?cat=lecture
https://podcast.thomisticinstitute.org/
Very much resonate with you on this. I was alway interested in philosophy and Metaphysics while being raised in a fairly fundamental faith - Seventh Day Adventist- and my greatest life regret is not being able to share the insights that are gleaned from a life of truth-seeking because the church has no room for the deep questions. They make foolish preventable mistakes and demonstrate the universal wisdom That when you stop seeking, you stop knocking on the door, you lose connection with Truth. “Ask and ye shall receive
“ has an obvious obverse that if you stop asking, you stop receiving.
My intellectual heroes are Jacques Ellul and Josiah Royce but the good are obscured in this day and age.
You have to seek them out! Glad I found you.
There are many evangelical Protestant circles that at least code as anti-intellectual, using interpretations of Scriptural shibboleths like "child-like faith", "confounding the wise", and the like to justify quashing intellectual inquiry.
And I've mentioned this before--the various branches of Protestantism have their own "magisteria", whether they are willing to admit it or not, and some of them have strict guardrails against some kinds of intellectual inquiry. These magisteria run the gamut from the most progressive Mainline to the most conservative Evangelical, with somewhat predictable results.
C.S. Lewis is highly spoken of in many Evangelical circles, but there are also a not-insignificant number of them who consider him to be a heretic because of something he said here or there. And even his fans wouldn't dare to do apologetics like him, probably for fear of that.
This is spot on. I am at least a generation older the Rev. Dr. Cooper but would agree. I arrived at university from a small-town Baptist background, but strangely for a small rural community we had an amazing scholar and thinker as a pastor. On one hand my moral framework was the pious lives of elderly saints - farmers and miners who took their religion seriously and joyously and on the other, a former seminary professor who wanted to return to parish work. Thanks to his guidance I read reformation era to 19th century theologians and commentaries and began to work through the multi-volumes of the ante-Nicaean church fathers. On arriving at college, I sought out the Christian groups and left disgusted. Campus Crusade for Christ offered no intellectual support against the hammering my world view was taking in the classroom at a mid-teir secular state college, and no support for the moral world that was being attacked in the social world that was so different from my own upbringing. The Lutherans were a presence on campus, and they had a big bowl of nothing - (ELCA), the Catholics had lousy singing nun music, and priests who I suspect were active homosexuals with nothing but be-nice, liberal protestant vibes and their bad liturgy; it was a shock - my faith faltered badly. I returned to my reading independently and found a few bosom friends and muddled through. I wanted to be a historian, but advisors who had figured out I was a conservative and a Christian tried to drive me away from the profession into the liberal protestant ministry, because people like me shouldn't be in academia to quote one of my professors, but with my mind and my intellectual gifts I would make a great {liberal} pastor. There was no subcultural eco-system in this era just before the full-blown birth of the internet to glom onto. I left and focused my life on a trade and church music. I saw my Baptist tradition collapse in the following years and became an Episcopalian, though I am confessional and conservative as the day is long. As a classically trained organist, I would say the prospect was even worse as a church musician. The arts are treated even worse by the conservative Protestant church than the life of the mind. For other friends, more gifted and driven than me, a few found a way forward, most gave up and ended up in business, some left the church altogether, others became liberals or Catholics. I think people should heed what Jordan argues.
As a intellectually curious believer I appreciate this. As an electronics professional three decades ago I made a commitment to the scriptures and rational defense of Christianity. I thought it was reasonable that knowledge of my creator had a legitimately equal demand on my intellect as my career.
Like C. S. Lewis I have some of my most spiritually profound moments, when through theological study I apprehend something new about Jesus.
-recent (7 years) convert to Lutheran, reasoned defender of the faith.
The great thing is to get evangelicals arguing with each other. They are too "nice", too feminine. But what pastor wants to do that? Or to have his youth group doing it?
College is the place to focus on, though. That is a place to argue and learn.
Jordan Cooper's life and actions speak better than when he writes things like this. Yes, the Protestant Intellectual Apparatus was stolen by the 1920's, reference Machen. Yes, what is left is uninspiring and controlled by petty theological tribes. But c'mon, such was it always for real intellectuals. The institutions were not exactly throwing positions and money at Kierkegaard. Nobody is reading any of the institutional academics today, let alone 10 years after they can't get you a tenure track position. When Cooper realized some of that, he took some real action. He has a real chance to be read after he's gone. He's his own person. But that really requires putting down petty grievances like this - which are completely understandable - and writing that intellectual project. It might not even be writing anymore, although I tend to think intellectuals require writing. Institutions move and build up around ideas that can't be moved. Around cornerstones laid.
Why do we choose a particular church (assuming Creedal - Apostles/Nicene/Chalcedon) 5 reasons I can see:
1) Family tradition/I grew up here
2) Locality/Culture (a la SBC in Bible Belt)
3) Geographical proximity (especially in rural locations)
4) Friendly people
5) Doctrinally correct people (rarely, if ever, does this coincide with point 4)
5) Most correct church doctrine (See PCUSA/PCA/OPC)
6) Best pastor (relates to point 6. Change of pastor results in a complete reevaluation.)
7) History
All of these reasons can factor into one's decision regarding church membership. I'm sure there are others I'm missing (financial health/affluence of local church body, worship style, other personal reasons). I have seen them all in practice, and been pushed towards a church based on any and all of them. Your arguments key towards only one of these reasons, Most Correct Doctrine. Yes, this is important, but is it most important? Especially considering point 5, where the people may or may not care about the doctrine. Some may even actively reject it, but sure, it's possible I might join a church because the historic church has the right doctrine (See Redeemed Zoomer/PCUSA). Is this going to lead to a healthy and vibrant spiritual body of believers, or a feeling of intense loneliness?
My guess is that many of the people that enter the river do so not purely for doctrinal reasons, but because they've seen the various dynamics carried out and see that they all fluctuate over time. The one thing that Rome has going for it is history. Yes, there are crazy popes, crazy catholics, crazy priests, crazy proclamations, and crazy doctrines. But how much do these really matter to the individual? At some point, it's reasonable to throw up one's hands, point to #8 (history and unity), and just make the best of it...knowing that all of these other points are shifting sand throughout one's life.
Personally, I really like Lutheran doctrine, but worship at an Evangelical Free (essentially SBC) church, alongside devoted believers and a faithful pastor. I would change a great many things, but I must make the best decision for me and for my family in my given place. When something changes, I will have to reevaluate, unless I am all-in on point #1 (family tradition). This is the American Way. But it's completely reasonable to punt, and I see this as a driver of many RCC moves.
When I attended a SBC church, most of the members fell into one of three buckets:
1) "My mom/dad was a Baptist, her mom was a Baptist, and her mom was a Baptist"
2) Former/children of Pentecostals (Church of God, AG, etc.) looking for something more progressive
3) People who had the Evangelical "come to Jesus" testimonial moment
Not much in the way of intellectual inquirers or casual seekers--and the former wasn't really welcome.
The Protestant habitus of individualism coupled with revival populism means that anti-institutionalism is coupled with anti-intellectualism. Many evangelicals have a truncated gospel (fall/redemption) versus a four-chapter gospel (creation/fall/redemption/restoration) which makes the life of the mind unnecessary or a threat. Added to this thoughtful analysis would be a study of evangelicals who have become Anglican, which doesn't provide a solution for funding but does provide a place for a soft landing theologically.
"Rome also allows for far more institutional laxity than I think is appropriate for a church, especially on matters related to the authority of Scripture."
The Patriarchs of Rome are always quoting scripture in their speeches and encyclicals. The priests are always quoting scripture in their homilies. During the Catholic mass there are 3 readings before communion. From the O.T. the N.T and the Gospels. The lords prayer, the Our Father, is recited every mass before communion. The communion prayers are taken from the last supper. Sacred Scripture is a very important part of Catholic theology. But the Church has more to offer than just the Bible, as it was along with the E.O. Churches, the first Church born on Pentacost. As such their is a direct line of episcopal succession with the Apostles, the first Bishops and thus maintains the Sacred Tradition as passed down by them. The magisterium simply catologues the debates of sacred scriptures and the sacred traditions of the Church for all the faithful to reference.
I largely agree with the concern, but I think even framing this as “Protestantism’s” institutional problem creates a problem of its own. Who exactly is included under “Protestantism”? Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptists, Pentecostals? Do we include mainline liberals who have abandoned orthodoxy? Do we include groups that are historically adjacent but heretical, such as Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses? The category is doing a lot of work before the argument even begins.
There have been efforts to create broader theological venues among Protestants. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals comes to mind. But what you are describing is more than a venue for theological discussion. It is a way to engage the public mind, academia, law, and institutional life. That is much harder because there simply is no general Protestant consensus comparable to what Rome can project institutionally.
But even there, Rome’s institutional advantage is not quite what its apologists often claim. Rome has a kind of flexible institutional theology that allows one priest to support LGBT revisionism while another insists the Church could never permit it. Rome often functions like a deep foam. If you can touch the Church at one point, you can call yourself Roman Catholic, and few will seriously harass you.
Catholic Answers and similar apologists create an illusion of Roman cohesion by pointing to the Magisterium, but they often ignore the ways places like Boston College, Notre Dame, the Church in Germany, and countless others use Jesuitical casuistry to undermine or evade supposedly settled truths. The “cohesion” is often more rhetorical than actual.
The real institutional benefit Rome provides is that it has enough mass, money, and prestige to support intellectuals in academia, law, and public life, often through Thomistic categories. But the average Roman Catholic adherent is not especially concerned with whether those intellectuals are devout, orthodox, or even particularly Roman in practice. The institution is large enough to absorb contradiction.
Protestantism has had an institutional problem since the mainline went liberal and the universities and elite structures ceased to operate within a broadly Protestant framework. Earlier Protestant influence was not always the result of a carefully organized institutional strategy. It was often simply the case that Protestants inhabited elite structures and shared a broadly common Protestant moral and theological world. Roman Catholics felt that enough to build parochial schools as a counterweight.
That said, Nathan Hatch’s work reminds us that even early American Protestantism was never a neat theological or intellectual establishment in which all Protestants felt at home. Baptists and other groups often kicked hard against older establishments. So it is not as though there was ever one clean Protestant institutional project waiting to be recovered.
Even a coalition between confessional Reformed and confessional Lutherans would be difficult to sustain institutionally. The old polemics over Christology, the communication of attributes, and the sacraments are not minor intramural differences. They have implications beyond sacramentology, and sparks would fly quickly if one tried to build a shared theological-philosophical institution at any depth.
Finally, I think “Protestantism” only has this problem in the acute sense when we are talking about certain intellectuals. As much as it can seem like Rome is gaining all the bright young minds, far more people still leave Rome than convert to it. The problem becomes more emotionally pressing when we define the “brightest” as the particular kind of person most tempted by Roman intellectual aesthetics. Perhaps the Lord sees these things differently. Something about camels, needles, and rich men comes to mind.
I say that as a Roman Catholic convert to the Reformed faith. Those who go to Rome really do need to leave a good portion of their mind at the door to accept Rome’s claims about its magisterium. Spend time in Counter-Reformation history and Jesuitical casuistry, and you will see that Rome’s claims have not changed so much as they have been endlessly repackaged. The only thing ancient about many of these arguments is that they keep being retreaded with the illusion of antiquity, and many accept them because Rome says they should.
As a person who grew up in the Reformed tradition and holds a degree from Wheaton College, I find that the anti-intellectualism and the pressures to confirm to commonly-held right/wrong positions within a particular church community are found everywhere. As a pianist, I have played for many different Prostestant demnominations, and while the proscriptions and suspicions are more encompassing in the more fundamentalist congregations. The Need to „think like the rest of us” is in all of them. If the majority of a Sunday School class decides that this why Paul wrote a particular rule to a church, then it is a Bibli command. Any thought that the rule might relate to social practices and beliefs of that time period are rejected—as heretical.
For me, the focus on doctrinally non-controversial ideas for group acceptance is suffocating. Nor do I like the idea that the Gospel of Jesus is so fragile that it cannot tolerate new ways to understand it. I care about communal worship deeply, but I find that the only way to maintain my freedom of study and experience with Biblical writings is to visit from church to church and stay far away from active church service because it inevitably becomes political. Sad, really.
The initial comments are essential to understanding why the last three conditions endure. I came across this same observation and evidence in the literature on Exvangelicals and Non-verts: most people don't convert out of theological conviction but social convenience. Theology fanatics are rare in the wild and most people don't find the distinction between Presbyterian and Methodist or between Episcopal and Catholic to be a deal-breaker. This has been true since the 70's, and I have the receipts for those who want to challenge this claim.
But this is why I'm not optimistic about Protestant clerical leadership suddenly "getting it" and reversing their course. We have people who are selected by their specific interest in theology trying to address the loss of people from their denominations who aren't particularly interested in it through more appeals to theology. To a young scholar, the arguments of their Catholic major professor who is working on the same kind of project are far more enticing than the recent seminary graduate at the University denominational association who answers field-specific concerns with appeals to 16th Century theological disputes. Let's not reduce these concerns to venal desire for positions and appointments, but recognize the role of motivated reasoning and how the Protestant ministry aren't even speaking the same language as Catholic scholars.
What happened in the years after which Douglas Wilson created the classical education movement? He's a Protestant pastor.
Anecdotally, most people I know involved in classical education are Catholic. Even Mortimer Adler eventually converted.
Catholics here in NYC don't do classical homeschooling, they have their own school system that's very different from that.
This was a problem even 50 years ago, Christian student arrived at university and the predominant faith communities providing outreach were Roman Catholic or Baptist. What did the lonely Episcopalian or Lutheran student looking for a spiritual connection to others do?
The same situation apparently continues on many campuses today.
Outreach to students isn’t difficult, but it takes recognition of the need and a plan to incorporate students in parish life.