A Farewell to Milquetoast

Hello, Tradition

Western Christianity is not dying. Nominal Christianity, associated mostly with the mainline, is fading from the scene. Yet smaller, more traditioned, more particular forms of Christian faith are enduring and in some ways thriving.

The Rise of the Trads

In the New York Times, Ross Douthat predicts that “within a couple of generations, there is going to be a strong demand for alternative visions and strong selection pressure favoring communities that figured out some kind of hack or adaptation or escape from the individualist cul-de-sac.” I would put it this way: the rate of social, political, and technological change taking place around us is producing a need for sturdier, deeper forms of meaning-making and community. Douthat continues, “These hacks will include a turn to some form of religious tradition: The dynamics of the 21st century will favor belief over secularism, Orthodox Jews over their modernized coreligionists, the Amish over their modern neighbors, ‘trads’ of all kinds over more lukewarm kinds of spirituality.”

More simply, hyper-individualism is not working, and people feel it. They feel the loss of community in their bones and they want something different. They don’t just want to socialize or hear an uplifting message. They want something more.

Liquid Modernity and Christian Faith

We live in a time that philosopher Zygmunt Bauman called “liquid modernity” (a term he preferred to “postmodernity”). The world around us is changing so quickly that it is hard to find stable footing. Modernity means the never-ending quest for improvement. Change is the only constant. We are always “post” something or other. In such an environment, it’s hard to find stability and meaning. How can we find meaning in life if the various aspects of our lives are in constant flux? Faith communities that cannot address the sense of disconnection and loss of meaning are irrelevant in this context. Sermons that amount to little more than happy talk are useless. Small groups of superficial connections are a waste of time.

Faith communities must provide structure for a gelatinous world. They must speak to the deepest questions of people’s lives. They must provide community that matters, in which people can really know others and be known. Any faith community worth its salt will teach a way of living by which people can see order, purpose, and meaning in their lives. Perhaps this is why Islam is thriving in Western Europe while the church is gasping for breath. Imagine what would happen in an awakened church that took its own teachings to be true—not just true in the sense of “useful” or “edifying,” but in the sense that they reflect the transcendent order of creation. We would see a vastly different religious landscape in the West than we do today.

Traditioned Faith and Christian Higher Education

Douthat’s insights are consistent with a recent piece in Insider Higher Ed called, “Religious Colleges That Lean Into Their Identity Make Gains: Stricter Catholic and Christian colleges seem to be experiencing enrollment increases as religious families become more wary of secular institutions.” It cites the example of Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, which has seen an enrollment increase of 46% over the last decade.

Timothy Reardon, vice president for enrollment management at Franciscan, attributes the university’s growth to its intensive, “dynamically orthodox” approach to Catholic education and identity. The university’s student body is about 97 percent Catholic. Four Masses are said every weekday—five on weekends—and are typically “standing room only,” he said. Daily lines to go to confession at the campus chapel snake out the door and around the street corner. The president’s executive team and the theology and philosophy professors all take an oath of fidelity to the Magisterium, a pledge to uphold Catholic Church teachings.

Franciscan University is recognized by the Cardinal Newman Society, which catalogs Roman Catholic colleges that rigorously uphold their Catholic identity and “refuse to compromise their Catholic mission.” Further, the article cites a news release by the Cardinal Newman Society reporting “enormous” growth in enrollment among its approved schools. This is in the face of a drop of 1.5 million students enrolled in college since 2010.

Photo by Rodolfo Clix: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photograph-of-person-praying-in-front-lined-candles-1024900/

The article continues, “David Hoag, president of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, has noticed similar trends among Christian institutions more broadly.” One evangelical school highlighted in the article is Asbury University. It is experiencing the largest enrollment in its history following the Asbury Revival. Another is Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida, “which has grown ‘more bold’ in advertising its Christian identity, according to Hoag. This school “saw applications skyrocket over a period of four years. The university reported a 305.5 percent increase in applications between 2019 and 2023, and record-breaking incoming classes three years in a row; 4,147 students enrolled this fall.”

Traditioned Community and Critical Thinking

The trend, then, is toward religious traditions that take seriously their own particularity. And yes, there are liabilities to this trend as well, most obviously tribalism. Unmitigated groupthink leads to intellectual stagnation. If we cannot interrogate our assumptions, we cannot have meaningful conversations with those outside of our group. In fact, the conversations within the group will become malnourished as well because we choose from the same intellectual menu day after day.

This is where critical thinking and intellectual virtue come into play. It matters not just what we think, but how we think. We can believe our faith is true without believing we apprehend its truth perfectly. We can live within a particular intellectual system while allowing space for curiosity and fair consideration of opposing ideas. We can listen, and in so doing refine our own ideas and dive more deeply into the mysteries of our faith.

I am an educator by vocation and a staunch advocate of critical thinking and intellectual virtue. To live without these is both irresponsible and dangerous, particularly in this age of messaging overload. And yet, like so many others, I cannot stomach a thin version of Christianity that does not take its own truth claims seriously. A religious tradition that is only vaguely defined, that makes no real claims on my life, is of no interest to me whatsoever. I want to know God in the deepest way I can. I want—and need—to be changed. I want my thoughts, words, and deeds to reflect the change that comes from an encounter with God. And I need other believers—the Communion of Saints—to show me the way. I want an industrial-strength vision of the Christian faith that can teach me the truth about God, other people, and myself. I need a faith that can save me. Turns out, quite a few other people do, too.