'The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind' and the Recent Surge in Orthodox Christianity & Roman Catholicism

All summer long, our Orthodox Parish has continued to see a strong surge of inquirers; visitors who have never before walked into an Orthodox Church, and this past weekend was no different.

Orthodox Christianity, with services that can go on for many hours, with a stream of repetition in prayer said over and over, and ‘again and again’, and compared to so many contemporary rock-style Evangelical churches, is more akin to something out of antiquity; a way of worship that many might think has no place in the modern world of cell phones, streaming, social media, and YouTube.

There are no guitars, pianos, drums, not even an organ at our church. The only instruments being the human body; our breath and our voice, just as it was walking into a 2nd Temple Jewish synagogue in the time of Saints Peter and Paul, when no faithful follower of Yahweh would ever allow man-made instruments in synagogue worship and prayer.

One wouldn’t be at fault thinking the type of worship that would draw the interest of a great number of young adults is not that which asks you to step back in time and divorce yourself from the rapidity of modernity, yet by my anecdotal observation, this is the third straight year that the surge of inquirers has been far higher than anything Orthodox churches experienced during the entirety of the 20th century.

On Sunday, I again spent multiple hours after Liturgy talking with young people in their 20s and 30s. Some single, some married, many of whom were attending an Orthodox Church for the first time in their life. I listened as they shared their spiritual journeys thus far, and the path that had led them to walk into our humble parish yesterday morning.

As the many professors who taught the catechism course I graduated from explained, being a church catechist is not merely teaching a class. In fact, that is less than 5% of it. Being a catechist is about sacrificing your time, being a lifelong learner, and spending untold hours listening to people who are on a spiritual journey.

Being a catechist is about being the last person who leaves church when there are visitors who need a friend, who need someone that is simply present with them, in whatever manner they need in that moment.

Our job as catechists is not to be people’s spiritual fathers or mothers, but to be their friends, and to help connect and gently guide them toward the spiritual fathers who are waiting to embrace them in love and help them heal.

Nearly everyone I talked with this weekend had spent their childhood growing up in various types of Evangelical churches.

A few I talked with had long ago abandoned the evangelical faith of their parents, and in recent years had tried crystals, the New Age movement, and other forms of modern spiritualism in quests to find purpose, meaning, and peace.

Now here they were, experiencing Orthodox Christian worship; a way of reflection, meditative prayer, and calming one’s spirit that has stood the test of time for 2,000 years, amidst so many other religions and traditions that have sought to replace it and relegate it as irrelevant.

Recently, I saw a 60 Minutes segment on YouTube chronicling a huge number of young adults across America who have converted to Roman Catholicism, a similar phenomenon as what I’ve been blessed to witness at my own parish; the surge of young adults (and even old) who continue visiting Orthodox churches.

In 1994, Mark Noll, a Protestant Reformed professor, published the book, “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind”. I read it 6 years after it was written, and his opening sentence was quite the doozy:

“The scandal of the Evangelical mind is that there is not much of an Evangelical mind.”

Professor Noll then went on to excoriate contemporary Western Christianity, specifically the Protestant version or what is often packaged as Baptist, Non-Denominational, or Charismatic Christianity.

Noll writes,

“Despite dynamic success at a popular level, modern American evangelicals have failed notably in sustaining serious intellectual life. They have nourished millions of believers in the simple verities of the gospel but have largely abandoned the universities, the arts, and other realms of “high” culture. Even in its more progressive and culturally upscale subgroups, evangelicalism has little intellectual muscle. Feeding the hungry, living simply, and banning the bomb are tasks at which different sorts of evangelicals willingly expend great energy, but these tasks do not by themselves assist intellectual vitality. Evangelicals sponsor dozens of theological seminaries, scores of colleges, hundreds of radio stations, and thousands of unbelievably diverse parachurch agencies, but not a single research university or a single periodical devoted to in-depth interaction with modern culture.”

Noll’s observation as an Evangelical insider was that the problem with modern Christianity is that instead of being a leader in the contemporary world when it comes to making beautiful art, composing inspiring music, and a plethora of other similar arenas, Evangelicalism had more or less become anti-intellectual.

Certainly, my parents would have considered themselves Evangelical, but because we began attending a little country Methodist church when I was young, one that was more steeped in its historic Anglican roots rather than modern Methodism, by the time I was old enough to think deeply about any of these theological subjects related to church, my mind was already formed toward a more classical, ancient way, or as it is, ‘Biblical way’ of thinking about corporate worship and church.

So my experience regarding Evangelical traditions was more from the outside looking in; I occasionally visited the churches of my friends as a young adult, but as the years passed, I realize as I write this, it has probably been nearly thirty years since I last visited what would be considered an Evangelical church. And so the Evangelicalism that dominates so much of Western Society is a subculture that in many ways is foreign to my life.

Without disagreeing with Professor Noll’s observations about what is wrong with modern Evangelicalism, as he is far more acquainted with it than I am, I can’t help but observe that the myriad of men and women I’ve talked with the last few years have not been flooding our parish because they are searching for a higher degree of intellectualism.

This isn’t to say that Orthodox Christianity is anti-intellectual. Far from it. But the more common theme from the spiritual stories I hear as a catechist is that people are looking for spiritual healing.

The list is virtually endless of the stories I’ve listened to:

• People needing to heal from abusive relationships

• People needing to heal from broken families

• People needing healing from loneliness

• People needing to heal from the death of a spouse

• People needing to heal from the death of a child

• People needing to heal from the loss of a parent

• People needing to heal from childhood trauma

• People needing to heal from abandonment

• People needing to heal from betrayal

• People needing to heal from infidelity

• People needing to heal from pornography

• People needing to heal from sexual sin

• People needing to heal from years of alcoholism

• People needing to heal from drug addiction

• People needing to heal from anger

• People needing to heal from bitterness

• People needing to heal from shame

What occurs for many people who stick with Orthodox Christianity over the long haul, who keep coming back Sunday after Sunday, again and again, is that the rhythm of our liturgy, of our worship, forms us. It changes us. And more specifically, it begins stirring the healing process.

The sacramental life of the Eucharist, confession, and more. Each contributes to the healing that so many of the people we see in our daily lives desperately need.

Modernity with political philosophy, psychology, pharmaceuticals, modern worship, and modern ideas has not fully addressed the heart of humanity’s deepest problems, and so at this moment in history, for however long it continues, I don’t know, people are looking to ancient Orthodox Christianity, quite simply, as a means to heal.

~ Kenneth

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