The Trouble with Converts
a few reflections on Tara Isabella Burton's own concerns
I read with interest Tara Isabella Burton’s piece at The Wisdom of Crowds. Burton writes against “mimetic Christianity”. Her definition is here:
In this view, Christianity is good, useful, and desirable both because its fundamental metaphorical message says something true about human nature, and also because a society in which people broadly hold to that metaphorical message is preferable to the nihilistic carnival of postliberal modernity. Also in this view, to be a Christian is to defend Western civilization, Western culture, tradition, gender norms, linguistic nominalism, truth as a virtue, the inherent meaningful language, the begetting of children, and the life lessons taught to us by Jesus and the Old Testament prophets alike. It’s also to defend the proliferation of Christian ideas as a necessary part of social improvement. Call it memetic Christianity.
There have been some notable recent converts to the Christian faith- Ayaan Hirsi Ali is named by Burton, but you might include Paul Kingsnorth and Matthew Crawford in the list. Jordan Peterson is always close by these conversations, though he is a proponent of the faith who remains himself an outsider. Peter Thiel is another of those attracted to Christian intuitions that Burton names.
The converts Burton mentions all share cultural cache that they bring with them when they convert. They were the “cultured despisers” who Schleiermacher addresses in his treatise. Modern Christianity has always loved such a story, at least in part because the cultural cache comes to church with such conversions. But should we love it?
In the very opening chapters of Eccentric Existence, David Kelsey writes about the genealogy of his interest in theological anthropology. He was, he writes, long interested in the human person. A project reflecting on the human person from both a Christian theological view and a secular one will borrow from non-religious reflections on personhood, such as those found in philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Kelsey read these with earnest.
The problem, he realized after a time, was that though he knew what was commensurate with Christian wisdom in psychological thought, he could not identify what was Christian without it. The bridge he was building between the secular disciplines and the religious faith was carefully secured on the secular side; the “Christian” insights were far too thin. The bridge itself would not hold.
What, after all, is distinctly “Christian” about personhood? Is it any different from the most compelling and proven therapeutic paradigm? And if it is not, why do we need it?
The same question holds for the memetic Christians Burton interrogates. At this point my concerns differ from hers a bit. It is, after all, natural and good that converts have zeal. We want them to be enthused about the good news that they have just heard, and the Christian faith has long benefited from the proclamation of the freshly baptised- think Saul/Paul, on this account.
The problem I see is that the bridge between “public intellectual” and “Christian confirmand” remains, for many, still unsteady. This, I suspect, is the fault of the religious themselves. For we have allowed the abutment on the “Christian faith” side to degrade. We place our own evangelistic efforts on the secular side, giving sermons on creation care and how the body keeps the score. We organize ourselves around social change we can believe in and against forms of belief viewed as too primitive. In so doing we have allowed our Christian abutment to crumble. It is no surprise, then, that new converts seek to reinvigorate muscular Christianity and the pronatalism it entails. We have modeled now for years that Christianity is largely about shoring up social commitments. We ought not be surprised.
The work of the Christian intellectual right now is to shore up the Christian side of the bridge. What is a distinctly Christian view of the human person? What does the claim of God as Creator entail for creaturely life? What, after all, is our only hope in life and death? What use, after all, is the Christian faith if it merely strengthens the nonreligious side of the bridge?
I'm sure Burton uses the word "mimetic" very intentionally to gloss Rene Girard, both his theories and the fact that many of the "mimetic Christians" she's talking about seem to find their way to the faith through Girard's influence or those of his disciples. Ironically, there's a lot of mimesis going on in that very process; you see it in J. D. Vance's own enamored description of Thiel as someone who modeled for him that "faith and reason" weren't incompatible. I think a fair number of these conversion stories come down to wanting to imitate someone, to achieve the "quality of being" they model.
This has gone on *inside* the church for a long time, too, as the born-again start climbing the ladder to holiness--or at least, what they've been told holiness is, what they've seen modeled for them. And I think this dynamic dovetails with what Burton is talking about.
And it is of course glaring that no one seems to have *Christ* in mind as the model they're trying to follow, but rather "some Christian in particular." Usually the most verbose and combative kind. The culture warriors. Which makes sense; the algorithms just don't select for "meekness and humility of heart" when providing us with new models to imitate.
Girard's own understanding of Christ as meek, self-giving, imitating the Father unto absolute solidarity with the victims of violence... It's so far and away what many of these folks see themselves as converting into. I can chalk it up to incorrigibility or to people simply not understanding their sage in the ways they think they do, but I've got a feeling it's more complex than that, in ways that worry me.
Kristen,
I've shared these concerns and I think this also relates to your essay "Can I Get A Witness?"
The other issue is there are now a lot of recent converts who have developed or already had fairly large online or media/book followings, who now have presence and reach to say things that aren't necessarily well formed or congruent with what many traditions or scriptural teachings or authorities (including that of their own churches) are.
A lot of this is a matter of what could be called spiritual maturity for a new convert, if they aren't being "checked" and discipled by genuine church leadership / priestly authorities who are involved in their lives personally and not just for their platforms, intellectual or political engagement, or perceived evangelistic reach.
This includes Ayaan to some extant, Paul Kingsnorth (on the other end of the spectrum), Matthew Crawford, and others (David Brooks could probably be said to be someone in this position, as someone more "mainstream". Tara could be considered so though she seems more sufficiently nuanced and grounded and critical. I also have concerns about French and Tish Warren but that's sort of another issue). I've heard at least two of these people in person and from reading their work and other responses came to the conclusion that many of them could be said to have incomplete views of God, Jesus, and what the Christian walk is, and sometimes seem like they speak too confidently from their understanding and platforms without being checked or having gone through trials for the perfection of their faith.
I think it's also a failing of the institutional church and church leadership (crisis of authority?) that things either aren't defined robustly and rigorously, emphasis on piety has diminished, and many leaders care more about splashy engagement with politically or culturally adjacent issues, or persuasive propositionalism, than people quietly plodding along the journey of faith.. combined with the incentive pressures of social media image and 'brand', and opportunistic church leaders with a cultural renewal mindset who view that as a form of evangelism, and this is what we get.