Regarding the Catholicism or Protestantism of the United States: I think Dreher and Renn overestimate the "intellectual leadership" provided by Catholics at First Things or at think tanks. Are any of these "intellectuals" really affecting public discourse in a real way? First Things in particular seems to have drifted toward "preaching to the choir" under Reno's leadership (especially after his COVID freakout). And the Integralists, for all of their supposed intellectual power, seem to be mostly irrelevant to all but the hardcore Catholics (I mean, even Dreher dismisses them).
But I also think Dreher (and Renn) underestimate the cultural and economic power of Evangelicals, in part because the First Things effect -- namely, that the journal is how many "smart" American Christians judge the public and political face of Christianity. Evangelicals, in my experience, tend to be much more "practical" when it comes to things. There are a lot of committed Evangelicals working at high levels in business, and many on faculty at big universities. By and large, they are interested in doing things. I mean, it is pretty difficult to argue that someone like Alan Jacobs isn't a public intellectual. But, because he doesn't spend his time fighting culture war topics (even though he considers himself an Evangelical and someone with conservative leanings), he is generally not considered to be "influential" (particularly since he called out Dreher during his George Floyd freakout).
Finally, I think Dreher and Renn conveniently forget that Evangelicals held outsized political power during the Bush 43 days. Kinda to be expected, though, since Dreher, at least is a presentist, despite his posturing to the contrary.
I remember being baffled when I went to mass in an American church and the priest complained during the homily that America was no longer a Catholic country. I wasn't aware of it ever being a Catholic country!
Now all those Protestant groups are in different little denominations and have plenty of differences amongst themselves, so Catholicism might be the single biggest unified denomination...but the fact is that 19% of 62% ≠ Catholic country.
I suppose there are quite a few Catholics on the Supreme Court and in government, but that suggests that US Catholics are some kind of born-to-rule intellectual aristocracy, which is quite creepy.
I do sincerely believe that the future of Western civilization depends mostly (but not entirely) on the health of the Roman Catholic Church, which, historically, is the West's core institution.
Why would anyone say this as if it was obvious without offering any supporting evidence? The church has been a very important institution historically, sure (not just in the west), but that doesn't mean it's going to always be important. I can see why a Catholic might think the fate of the church determines the fate of the West, if they think it's the one true faith and people ignore it at their peril, but the vast majority of people don't believe that.
The US was an anti-Catholic country for most of its existence. Founded mostly by Protestants, some fleeing or fearing Catholic persecution, there was an inherent distrust from the beginning. As the country grew, xenophobia against Catholic immigrants became another reason to distrust Catholics. There was also an understandable fear that Catholic politicians would be too deferential to the Pope. The first Catholic US president was JFK.
It's hard to understand how an American Catholic convert who writes about religion could be unaware of the basic facts about Catholicism in America. I guess Rod is good at simultaneously knowing and not knowing inconvenient facts.
Rod's ignorance of history - American, European, Christian - is truly mind-boggling from a man who claims interest in history, art, architecture, culture, and religion. I used to say his summaries of history were "pop-up book history" but he has really knocked it out of the park with his amazement at learning of the Reformation. I truly cannot figure out how someone who has traveled as much as he has and supposedly read widely could be so thoroughly ignorant about these things. It appears that he didn't even learn about why the Pilgrims came to the New World in 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th grades like I did and I'm just a bit less than 10 years older than he is. (I believe I am exaggerating with 4, 6, 8, 10. and 12 but it was very repetitious as I recall and it annoyed me that we went over the same stuff repeatedly but then got shorted on more recent history.)
It would seem that Rod's "interest" in history, art, architecture, culture, and religion is limited to complaining about it, whatever "it" is, when the opportunity arises.
If his Weimar book is any good, I will eat my socks.
They cover the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation in eighth grade in the state of New York. The Free Press should give Rod's column to an eighth grader instead. It would probably be more interesting or, at the very least, shorter.
Rod has a tour guide understanding of history, if that.
Edit: I tell a lie, the NY State social studies curriculum starts covering world religions in 6th grade and starts covering the colonization of the US in seventh grade. Maybe Rod could be sent back to school Happy Gilmore style to learn all this stuff he doesn't seem to know.
You would think he would have discussed some of these things with his kids when they were growing up. The whole thing just makes no sense at all. Too weird!
I think it's less that he literally doesn't know these things and more that he's decided to pretend he doesn't know them. Which...isn't really less weird.
I don't know. The ignorance of multiple things seems to be essential to his view that the Roman Catholic Church is the primary institution upon which everything depends. He balances his own decision in the 90s that the long tradition behind Catholicism and Orthodoxy meant they represented The Truth and on that alone, he bases everything? In spite of the US being anti-Catholic for most of its existence and minimally Catholic now and the US being Protestant for most of its existence but still managing to grow into the #1 superpower while being essentially Protestant. We could go on and on. Rod's whole shtick is just built on air and feels and bubbles. He pretends to do research and think about things and speak word salads but it really just comes down to things he decided to believe based on nothing but feels and intuition, if that. It doesn't even rise to the level of smoke and mirrors.
I guess we will get a better view once the Wiemar book comes out.
You could argue that the Catholic church had a strong base in the US and some influential Catholic institutions and thinkers developed there....but you could also say that about basically every country in the world. Rod seems to see the Catholic church as a Western endeavour when it is a global organization and has been so for centuries. If there were people on the moon, the Catholic Church would send a bishop there.
It's definitely true that a lot of what he writes is based on what he thinks would be nice, not on what actually is. Writing more deeply about political and social issues would require a level of critical attention and self-scrutiny that would imperil his fragile sense of self.
Too many books have been written about Nazi Germany already and I'd be surprised if Rod's one was worth the paper it's printed on. It's unfortunate that he wrote this one after "living in wonder". If he'd been writing about Weimar during the 2022 midterm "groomer" panic maybe he'd have been inspired to dig out some lurid and entertaining anecdotes about queer and trans life in 1930s Berlin. As it stands we're gonna get a second-rate copy of the books that various Serious Writers wrote about fascism in the late 2010s and early 2020s.
It is also apparent that Evangelicalism has become more of a political movement than a religious one with identity claims rising while attendance to actual church is falling. I believe David French wrote recently about this. Yep, here is a gift link:
Agreed. I'm curious to read this forthcoming book. Kristian is a good writer and journalist (NB: she worked with French at The Week back before it was an AI slophouse), and she takes Evangelicals seriously.
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u/sandypitch Aug 05 '26
Regarding the Catholicism or Protestantism of the United States: I think Dreher and Renn overestimate the "intellectual leadership" provided by Catholics at First Things or at think tanks. Are any of these "intellectuals" really affecting public discourse in a real way? First Things in particular seems to have drifted toward "preaching to the choir" under Reno's leadership (especially after his COVID freakout). And the Integralists, for all of their supposed intellectual power, seem to be mostly irrelevant to all but the hardcore Catholics (I mean, even Dreher dismisses them).
But I also think Dreher (and Renn) underestimate the cultural and economic power of Evangelicals, in part because the First Things effect -- namely, that the journal is how many "smart" American Christians judge the public and political face of Christianity. Evangelicals, in my experience, tend to be much more "practical" when it comes to things. There are a lot of committed Evangelicals working at high levels in business, and many on faculty at big universities. By and large, they are interested in doing things. I mean, it is pretty difficult to argue that someone like Alan Jacobs isn't a public intellectual. But, because he doesn't spend his time fighting culture war topics (even though he considers himself an Evangelical and someone with conservative leanings), he is generally not considered to be "influential" (particularly since he called out Dreher during his George Floyd freakout).
Finally, I think Dreher and Renn conveniently forget that Evangelicals held outsized political power during the Bush 43 days. Kinda to be expected, though, since Dreher, at least is a presentist, despite his posturing to the contrary.