Battling Protestants: A Conversation with David Hollinger

Battling Protestants (Ideas Roadshow Conversations) by Howard Burton/David Hollinger

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Two Secular Dudes Having a Conversation about How Evangelicals Should Not be Allowed in the Conversation.

This is part of a series where Howard Burton has conversations/interviews with scholars about interests that would probably be of interest to, I imagine, based on this book, secular leftists. The interviewee in this case is David Hollinger. Hollinger is an atheist, left-wing Berkeley professor who writes on religion in America. Burton shares that he is not American and that he views America's religiosity as bizarre and wacky.

The conversation, in this case, centers around Hollinger's argument that America's continuing religiosity does not invalidate the “secularization thesis.” This thesis says that as societies modernize and become more scientifically aware, religious explanations lose their appeal and religion whither away. America is said to challenge the secularization thesis because, unlike other Western cultures, America has retained high levels of religious commitment and participation.

Hollinger is very reassuring to despairing secularists. He explains that America is like other countries, but perhaps twenty years behind the curve. Hollinger's thesis is that America has typically been divided between liberal Christians and conservative Christians, which he labels “Ecumenical Christians” and “Evangelical Christians,” respectively. Hollinger explains:

“In the 18th century, there is both a more rationalistic, enlightened style of Protestantism that moves in a Unitarian direction, and a more evangelical, revivalist strand. There are thus two parties, and through the 19th century there are various versions of this.”

And:

“Now, “Ecumenical” is a term that comes into vogue partly because, from the 1940s onward, the liberals—the people who were the most interested in modernity and who want religion to be up-to-date and to respond to modern challenges—are impatient with the sectarian divisions that divide different Protestant groups from one another. They're eager to minimize those distinctions and be “Ecumenical,” applying a sense of unity. They began establishing more and more trans-denominational organizations, such as The Federal Council of Churches, The National Council of Churches, The World Council of Churches and Church World Service, as well as a variety of agencies that will enable Presbyterians, Methodists and so forth to work together.
In the meantime, while this Ecumenical Protestantism is taking form—and I'll comment a little bit more about that in a moment —it is defined partly against what comes to be called “Evangelical Protestantism”. Now, Evangelical Protestantism is a direct inheritor of Fundamentalism, but it includes other things that are not quite as text-driven.”

And:

“A group of Ecumenical Protestants who had been pacifists, together with another group who had been so-called “realists” (more concerned with the standard exercise of power in the world), had been quarrelling in the 1930s about peace and war. But by the 1940s, they bury the hatchet and come together to hold a big conference in 1942, in which Ecumenical Protestants outline what is quite a radical program for what the world should look like after the war.
They're very critical of the British Empire, they're critical of colonialism, they're critical of racism, they're critical of nationalism, and so forth. This conference becomes a big push towards what becomes the United Nations; and they all pronounce themselves in favour of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists and Baptists and so forth working together.”

In a nutshell, this spells the divide between the traditional Protestant denominations and the non-denominational Protestants. It also defines the relative arc of the fortunes of the two Protestantisms in the post-War era. Thus, because of their guilt over colonization, Ecumenical Protestants – who had previously led in this area – gave up missionary efforts and focused on good works.

“DH: Yes. First, regarding the missionaries. Indeed, quarrels about what missions should be undertaken is one of the major factors that animated both the Evangelicals and the Ecumenists, because the Ecumenical Protestants, very early on, begin to be worried about cultural imperialism. They increasingly move their missionary endeavours away from preaching and conversion towards social services and education, building all these hospitals and so forth.
Zhou Enlai used to talk about the magnificent contribution that the missionaries had made to China because of all these colleges and medical schools. There were a number of examples like that throughout the world.
The Evangelicals, in the meantime, got very fed up with these Ecumenists for giving up on preaching. There were a number of quite fierce battles about that all the way from the 1920s down through the 1960s, by which time the Ecumenists are largely out of the business of missions. There are more American missionaries abroad in the world right now than at any time in American history, but they are Evangelicals—graduates of Biola and Wheaton —instead of Princeton and Yale, the way they used to be.”

Interestingly, much of the World War II generation of OSS operatives was drawn from the ranks of Preacher's Kinds because of their familiarity with foreign countries where their father had a mission.

The result has also been the destruction of mainstream Protestant denominations. Hollinger casually dismisses this latter effect, presumably because he thinks it is historically inevitable. He says:

“That's why, since the 1960s, the Ecumenical churches have declined so much—much more than the Evangelical churches. The Ecumenical churches and their numbers have declined, in part, because they're already so far towards secularization that they can move easily into that, whereas the Evangelicals are still fighting this.”

This is a fantastic understatement and a bit of legerdemain. Part of my legal practice has been representing vibrant, vital congregations of mainstream Protestant denominations – Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, UCC, etc. – who have pulled out en masse from their liberal/left denominations. This is part of a trend that has seen mainstream Protestantism hemorrhage membership in a version of “get woke, go broke.” Each of these denominations has lost something on the order of 50 to 60% in absolute numbers, which is something on the order of 70 to 80% based on population growth over the last forty years.

In contrast, Evangelical churches have been picking up members.

When a speaker's grammatical references become muddled that is a clear indication that some cognitive dissonance is occurring. So, when Hollinger says “they can move easily into that,” it is unclear what he is saying. Is he referring to “secularization”? If so, how do Ecumenical Protestants become secularists without ceasing to be Protestant? Is that what he means. In which case, why is it surprising that Evangelicals are “resisting” this process?

The conversation has the feeling of watching British colonial administrators talking about the backwardness of the native from the perspective that Britannia will always rule the waves. The agreement between the interlocutors means that a lot of buried assumptions are not critically examined.

This book ties into other books I've read that discuss the differences between an immanent and a transcendental religiosity. (see Smith, Pagans and Christians in the City.) The former is concerned with values and goods in this world; the latter in the next world. It is obvious that Hollinger's Ecumenical Protestants fit the model of immanent religiosity.

I particularly enjoyed the apparently incoherent position that there should be a “conversation” on whether Evangelicals should be allowed to participate in public policy discussions and that they should not be allowed to participate in such discussions. Thus, Hollinger says:

“DH: That's right. Now, I understand that. I can see why they do that, but since I believe that many of the things that are problematic about the culture of the United States today have to do with the continued currency of a lot of obscurantist ideas that cannot meet modern standards of cognitive plausibility, then I'm very eager for us to have a national conversation about those things.
When you look at where the most conservative of the political voices come from, they very often come from these evangelical sites, so that there is a connection between obscurantist, theological ideas and these reactionary, political ideas. I think we'd be better off if there was a more open debate about it. I don't see very many signs of it. In fact, I think that the press is afraid of this.”

So, open debates about how obscurantist Evangelical theological ideas are connected to “reactionary political ideas” are perfectly acceptable. But then, there is this:

“DH: Well, I don't have a good answer to that. I was speculating a while ago that it had something to do with corporate interests, relations to advertisers and the necessity of maintaining connections. But I don't have a good answer to that. I would prefer, of course, that they do exactly what you've described, that they convene such a conversation, but I have seen very little signs of anybody wanting to do that.
The closest I've seen to that is that the Center for American Progress, a big Washington-based left-liberal think tank run by John Podesta, has convened several of these consultations.
I've done a couple things with them. E.J. Dionne and I did a debate there a few years ago in which they brought in about 50 or 60 heads of religious service organizations and we talked about this matter of how religion can play a more progressive role in the society.
But the thing broke apart on the lines that I indicated earlier: that there was a group of people who felt that our early task should be to recognize the importance that Catholic hospitals should not have to provide abortion services or even distribute contraceptives, and this was what was really important if we wanted to establish a rapport with religious groups.
Well, you can imagine how that went over with some of the rest of us.”

So, the problem with open conversations is that they might be “too open” and result in the application of principles to things that our comfortable British colonial administrators might find problematic.

So, this is an interesting book with a good model of the present plight of Protestantism. It's an easy read and worth seeing what elitists are inclined to say when they talk to each other.