Notes, if you don't know, is the social media feed of Substack. Notes is the closest thing I've experienced to something like Facebook or Twitter, neither of which I've ever subscribed to.
You witness a lot of tiresome debates on Notes. Some of the debates on Christian Substack happen between Orthodox Christians and Catholic Christians, or the Orthodox and Catholics teaming up against Protestants. These debates regularly concern who represents the "one true church." There is, to put it mildly, a lack of ecumenical charity in many of these conversations.
A lot of the negative and aggressive energy inserted into these debates is from men who have become recent converts to Orthodoxy. You might be aware of this trend and it's impact upon Christian social media. The main take of these Orthodox converts is that every branch of Christianity, from Catholics to evangelicals, is a theological failure. Heretical, even. Only Orthodoxy preserves the one true faith.
This conceit, however, isn't limited to the very online Orthodox. There are also aggressive Catholics who denigrate Protestantism. And in response to these Orthodox and Catholic attacks, there have arisen aggressive Protestant defenders.
Here's my hot take. I think many of these loud and aggressive converts are more in love with Christianity than they are with Christ. They love the creeds, the church fathers, the liturgy, the saints, the history, the culture of Christendom, the doctrine, the dogma, the theology, the Tradition. What they don't seem to love very much is Jesus, as evidenced in their becoming belligerent social media trolls.
Also, I'm not convinced by arguments that Orthodoxy and/or Catholicism preserve a true, pure, faithful and original Christianity. I think the Catholic and Orthodox churches are profound and beautiful. Count me a fan. But the early Christians didn't baptize infants, they didn't pray to Mary, they didn't worship at an altar, they didn't venerate icons, and they didn't pray to dead Christians. To be clear, those practices are defensible. And I'm not saying they are wrong. Just that if you dropped the apostles into the Catholic and Orthodox traditions they would be surprised by some things. I think they'd get their heads around it once it was explained to them, but it would take a minute. And I think some of them would express concerns.
The Orthodox and Catholics also love to portray Protestants as schismatics. But the Orthodox and the Catholics invented that game. They are the OG schismatics. It's called the Great Schism for a reason, and their online vituperativeness conforms to type.
I'm not here, however, to defend Protestantism. My point is that we've got a ecumenical situation on our hands and a little humility and charity is called for.
So, where is all this vitriol coming from? To my eye, it's fear, plain and simple. I describe these dynamics in The Authenticity of Faith, how dogmatism is used to cope with existential anxiety. It is comforting to feel safe and right and smart. But when faith is deployed neurotically like this it spills out in out-group denigration. Fearful people are prone to hostility, and Christian social media is a great example.
This is one reason we're seeing so many young men gravitate away from evangelicalism toward Orthodoxy and Catholicism. As sola scriptura Protestants these young men were raised as epistemic foundationalists. In standing on Scripture they stood on a firm, solid, and unshakeable foundation of Truth. The Bible provided them with every answer to every question. Epistemically, they were bulletproof. They were right and everyone who disagreed with them was wrong. This certainty provided existential comfort and consolation. Dogmatism was a security blanket.
Then they went off to seminary or down some YouTube rabbit hole and discovered that "Scripture alone" was hermeneutical quicksand. Suddenly, the edifice of security began to crumble. Where to turn? Where to find a firm and unassailable foundation? The Tradition! One type of foundationalism (the Bible alone) was exchanged for another (the Tradition). In both cases, the evangelical need for bulletproof certainty remained a constant. There has to be some "correct" place to land in the ecclesial landscape. It's utopianism in theological dress. But the underlying anxiety curdles the quest. Especially if, once the "one true church" is found, the old evangelical hostility and judgmentalism toward out-group members resurfaces. The underlying neurotic dynamic is carried over. Fundamentalism is merely rearranged. In order to feel secure and safe I need to scapegoat outsiders. Their damnation is proof of my salvation, their heresy confirms my orthodoxy. That's why the cocksure certainty of the new converts is so abusive, narcissistic, and hostile.
People often ask me, "Why aren't you Catholic or Orthodox?" They inquire because I love these traditions and write about them a good deal. Orthodoxy is a huge part of The Slavery of Death. Catholicism in Hunting Magic Eels. And I could totally imagine converting to either faith. But I feel no anxious, neurotic pressure to do so because I find all the traditions beautiful. And deeply, deeply flawed. The Protestant. The Anglican. The Catholic. The Orthodox. And I have zero angst about getting to the bottom about which of these is "the real church." Precisely because such anxiety poisons the entire search.
Now, of course, I want to be sympathetic to seekers who sincerely desire to honor God in finding the church and tradition they feel is most true, pure, and authentic. More power to such seekers. But if, after you find your new home, you become a toxic asshole, well, let me suggest that your motives for seeking weren't so healthy or sincere. Some dark fear was driving you and is now erupting in oedipal vitriol. If you're attacking other Christians online, especially after a conversion, you are, to put it simply, neurotic and unwell. You're having a love affair with Christianity and have yet to fall in love with Christ.
