Thanksgiving Open Thread: Mysticism, Mystery and Re-enchantment

Re-enchantment could be one of the big themes of the next decade

It’s the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. So take some time to remember all that you have to be thankful for. I certainly have a lot to be thankful for, not least of which are all of you who took advantage of my special last week to join my Member program. Thanks so much.

I’ll be returning on Monday with my usual podcast, this one an episode with Nancy Pearcey discussing her new book The Toxic War on Masculinity.

I published John Seel’s essay on masculinity and being a holy man because I thought it had some interesting, provocative takes. But I was struck by two things in particular when I originally read a version of it he wrote as part of a study he’d been commissioned to do.

First is the growing appeal of Eastern Orthodoxy. When I read his description of the “holy man,” I immediately said to myself, “This is why young men are converting to Eastern Orthodoxy,” even though he did not mention Orthodoxy at all in the original version I read.

While the numbers are small, there does seem to have been a flow of young men into Orthodoxy. It’s especially the case in the online right, where the “orthobro” has become a fixture. Just as Catholicism is normative in mainstream conservative circles, it’s very possible that Orthodoxy might ultimately become normative in dissident conservative ones. Do not underestimate the power of this form of social normativity.

Also, whether accurate or not, Orthodoxy has acquired the reputation of a tradition that is very attractive and friendly to men. Brands like this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the online men’s sphere, evangelicalism is viewed as a female-centric movement, which increases the draw of Orthodoxy as the religion for men. In his book Why Men Hate Going to Church, David Murrow noted a split in the black community, with women drawn to Christianity and men increasingly to Islam. Given the pervasive gender splits we are seeing in multiple countries and in multiple domains (e.g. politics), we might possible see men and women increasingly drawn to different religious traditions within Christianity.

And, with the Catholic abuse scandals as well as Pope Francis’ emerging reputation as a liberal, the bloom is off the rose of Catholicism for many potential converts. Just as in the evangelical world, the hot thing shifted from “Presbyterian” to “Anglican,” there seems to be a shift away from the attractiveness of Catholicism toward Orthodoxy, especially for those who don’t have career ambitions within movement conservatism.

Evangelicals should be very attentive to the current appeal of Orthodoxy. Even though the numbers are small, I believe they are disproportionately next generation influencers. So this is significant, just as the conversion of intellectuals to Catholicism has been considered significant even though the net flow of conversions is actually away from Catholicism towards evangelicalism.

Seel’s essay also hit on the theme of re-enchantment, which I believe will be very big in the coming decade. As you may know, Rod Dreher’s next book is going to be on re-enchantment. He’s someone with a nose for what is coming next, though even as he himself will say, he’s sometimes a bit too early to market. He parted ways with his original publisher on the project, but I believe he is on to something big here. Just as with The Benedict Option, there’s a good chance his new book will be written in a register that is off-putting to evangelicals, but that doesn’t mean its core insights won’t be important.

I went through a three year period some time ago that was by far the worst of my life. It wasn’t just that it was bad, but that there were so many bizarre things that happened that they could only be collectively viewed as at least semi-miraculous - but for the purposes of harming me. I had never read Max Weber, but after that period was over and I read Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age and his account of disenchantment I realized something: during that three year period the world had become re-enchanted for me.

I was raised Pentecostal, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. It’s much more like Nassim Taleb’s idea of the Black Swan - the seemingly random, un-anticipatable, outlier events that are overwhelmingly determinate of our life outcomes. One reason I have been so taken with Taleb’s work, and make continued references to it, is because I’ve lived it. And I believe that, properly put into a spiritual register, Taleb’s ideas around randomness and Black Swans are a foundation for a re-enchanted view of the world.

I should be no surprise that Taleb comes from Orthodoxy. The fact that Orthodoxy seems to operate with a richer appreciation of mystery and mysticism is another factor drawing young people to it. It speaks to this growing longing for a re-enchanted world. (The draw to Jordan Peterson’s Jungian claptrap is probably in this vein as well).

Obviously I can’t predict the future, but cultural currents suggest to me that re-enchantment will be a major and growing theme in coming years, and will subsume the previous movement towards liturgy within it. For Protestants, I believe the the draw to liturgy over the past decade+ is not just about seeking for a more deeply rooted tradition - although it is that - but about an underlying longing for a more re-enchanted spirituality.

When I read about American history, I see a people who were deeply cognizant of the role of Providence in their fate, and that of the nation. This sense of the role Providence pervasively at work in human affairs is perhaps a Protestantized version of a form of enchantment. Maybe we’ll see a return of this as well.

Regardless of how it plays out, I anticipate re-enchantment being a much bigger theme for younger generations in a Negative World. This will be something that the moralistic therapeutic Boomerism of mainstream evangelicalism will struggle to adapt to.

Comments are open to all on this post:

• Do you see Orthodoxy gaining traction or not?

• What’s drawing people to convert?

• What do you think about the idea of re-enchantment?

• How have you personally experienced re-enchantment?

Cover image: Hans Speckaert, “Conversion of St Paul on the Road to Damascus”