35 Comments

Rod Dreher » ‘Swimming the Cumberland’
November 16th, 2011 | 9:48 am

[...] a neat phrase to describe the act of leaving the Catholic Church for the Southern Baptist church: “swimming the Cumberland.” (The HQ of the Southern Baptist Convention, he points out, is on the Cumberland River). Joe gives [...]

tmatt
November 16th, 2011 | 10:09 am

On your second point: Is it safe to say that the post-Vatican II Church is functionally Universalist? Might that play a role? This would apply to most Mainline Prots as well. Yes, also far too many Orthodox parishes.

Matthew
November 16th, 2011 | 10:18 am

hmmm as a Catholic who grew up in Tennessee, it doesn’t much surprise me. Whatever deficiencies there may be in doctrine in liturgy (most pointedly – separation from the Body and Blood of Christ), there is considerable attraction. Baptists seem, almost as a rule, kind and welcoming, and moreover – enthusiastic followers of Christ.

Catholics in the South (even more than the US in general) are immersed in a distinctively Protestant culture. The small Catholic subcultures in the South are often greatly protestantized, moreso than they realize. So the cultural step to a Baptist church is very small.

Ellyn
November 16th, 2011 | 10:22 am

Catholics who become Lutheran? Swimming the Milwaukee River? (at least Wisconsin Synod Lutherans…I say this having grown up close to the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary…and Milwaukee River. Having seen – and smelled – the river, it is not an appealing analogy.)

Rod Dreher
November 16th, 2011 | 10:51 am

Joe, I think your point about user-friendliness is really important. When I was a Catholic, I used to wonder why a person who walked into one of our churches would keep coming back. The worship was not especially beautiful, and the sermons were typically of the “be nice” sort. The kind of theological convictions about the Eucharist and all the rest were not evident, nor really could be; you were not going to understand Catholicism well enough to accept it or reject it after only one or two visits.

The same is true of Orthodoxy, though the worship is typically far more beautiful than contemporary American Catholicism’s. Still, I had, and have, the same question: if some poor lost sinner walked in off the street to see what we were about, what is it about us that would bring him back?

Baptists, by contrast, are a lot more user-friendly, as you say.

Also, I remember growing up Methodist, and hearing sermons that told us nothing more than “be nice.” As a teenager, I began attending the local Baptist church for a time, and was really struck (and attracted) by the totally different preaching there. The theme in every sermon was “Jesus expects you to be converted and to change your life — and this is an urgent thing.” Of course there are faults with this. I understand from Baptist friends, and friends who are former Baptists, that things are so heavily geared toward the moment of conversion that discipleship formation gets short shrift. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I can see how it would be.

Still, I am betting that one reason Baptist churches are so popular is that they make the Gospel urgent in the lives of people.

pentamom
November 16th, 2011 | 10:53 am

Well, since Southern Baptists are by fer the single largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., isn’t it just obvious that, unless there were something particularly repulsive about Baptists, they’d glean the largest percentage of any group of people looking for a change in faith affiliation?

Besides, they are known for being overtly “evangelistic” — not even always in an “in your face way” but as Joe says, they’re the ones who will invite you to church, or church activities, or whatever. If a Catholic is open to or looking for a change for whatever reason, that’s who’ll get them (statistically speaking.)

RL
November 16th, 2011 | 10:59 am

Surely a Catholic who becomes Lutheran swims the Elbe, to get to Wittenberg. But what about a Catholic who becomes a mainline Protestant? Does he swim the Hudson, to get to 475 Riverside Drive? Or is it insulting to compare the Catholic Church to New Jersey?

Sherry Weddell
November 16th, 2011 | 11:19 am

Tmatt:

I’d estimate that 95 – 98% of all the Catholics – including pastoral leaders – that I’ve ever worked with are functional universalists. Meaning that concerns regarding the personal salvation of anyone never cross their mind or affect their pastoral decisions and priorities. Roughly the same number are de facto Pelagians.

Ethan C.
November 16th, 2011 | 11:36 am

Well, if they become Missouri Synod, you can say they swam the Missouri. That’s pretty easy to remember!

Jack Perry
November 16th, 2011 | 11:54 am

As to Joe’s original question, at least one (ex-?)Catholic I know who now attends a Baptist Church does so because he finds it more congenial for his kids, who don’t like to sit still. Baptist Church, he said, was more fun: he made friends there, etc.

What I’m curious about is this: how many of those Catholics who are, ah, “swimming the Cumberland” actually hold the fullness of Catholic faith? It’s no secret that a substantial number of Catholics don’t believe (for example) that the Eucharistic elements are truly the Body and Blood of Christ, with only the appearance of bread and wine. Is there a correlation there?

Another question: given the number of Baptist converts to Catholicism that I’ve met, how many of those entering Baptist churches are former Baptists, and how many are cradle Catholics?

anonymus
November 16th, 2011 | 1:00 pm

As someone baptized Catholic as a child (not an infant), but raised in the Baptist Church and from a large extended Baptist family with deacons, Sunday school teachers and missionaries among our numbers there is most certainly a cultural attraction to many Catholics to “accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior”. However, the ‘swimming the Cumberland’ does not generally take place among those well founded, formed and rooted in their Catholic Faith.

It comes from those who do not know the Catholic faith or are weak in the practice of the Catholic faith. All too often it is those Catholics who rely upon non-Catholics to explain Catholicism to them. Again, too often they were searching and did not know what they had (or at least available to them) in the Catholic Church (relationship with Christ, the richness and security of the Word of God, fellowship, sense of belonging, active prayer life) and found it elsewhere.

When asked when I discovered Christ, I often respond ‘sometime before my ordination to the Catholic priesthood!’ When I am asked why I life my life as a Catholic today, the answer is equally simple – grace. In the parish where I am pastor, the largest number of the 40 plus non-catholic adults in RCIA this year are coming from – yes, you guessed it, the Baptists!

Crowhill
November 16th, 2011 | 1:47 pm

I think you’re missing something obvious.

The scandal in the Catholic Church was not that there were bad priests, but that an arrogant hierarchy was more interested in protecting itself than in protecting the flock.

Baptists don’t have Jesuits and cardinals and secret meetings. They are anti-hierarchical.

mcurt2s
November 16th, 2011 | 4:53 pm

I think there is a lot of cross-pollenization between churches now, so the leap is not great. Many Baptist churches have embraced aspects of the charismatic renewal (and even bits of liturgy) from the Catholic and Episcopal churches, and Catholics are doing Beth Moore Bible studies with the Baptists. We all meet in the pro-life cause, MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) and in private schools and find we have a lot more in common with each other than with the world. We like listening to Joyce Meyer and praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
A couple of years ago, a group from our evangelical church was invited to join a Catholic faith festival in Europe. We were amazed at the depth Adoration and confession added to the outreach in the city square.

Alexander S. Anderson
November 16th, 2011 | 6:42 pm

The Baptist Church would be one of my last choices were I ever to leave the faith. It’d probably be Eastern Orthodoxy that would be at the top of my list if I left the church… but maybe there isn’t a lot of opportunities for that in the Bible Belt? Then again, catechesis has been horrid for the last few decades (hence the universalists and pelagians that are mentioned here) so maybe any jump isn’t unexpected. Sad though.

ianthis
November 16th, 2011 | 9:54 pm

Well, as opposed to the American Episcopalian church, the Baptists still hold Pro-life and Pro-conservative marriage values, so someone could move from Catholic to Baptist and preserve their practical ethics.

Craig Payne
November 16th, 2011 | 10:57 pm

mcurt2s wrote, “Many Baptist churches have embraced aspects of the charismatic renewal…”

Having long been a part of the charismatic renewal, I am sometimes quietly amused (in a kindly, non-snarky way) when I visit Baptist or Reformed churches. They, too, have the rock bands and sing the same songs as the Charismatics. The immediately striking difference is that, when the Baptists and Reformed finish singing the song, there is sudden–dead–absolute–silence. (Perhaps an occasional Baptist “Amen!”)

Same songs, not quite the same vibe.

Also, I think Jack Perry has a good point. If one really believes that in receiving the Eucharist, one is receiving Christ, why would you “swim the Cumberland” to a place where you would no longer have that? Devout Catholics submit to a lot of insipid lameness (grouchily, I will admit) for the sake of the Real Presence.

Douglas
November 17th, 2011 | 1:20 am

Hungerman seems to have as a thesis that millions of Catholics have specifically left the Church because of disappointment and disillusion stemming from child sexual abuse. If so, then the Baptist Church will at once provide them with a cultural familiarity on moral issues not found in Lutheran or Episcopalian circles and at the same time provide them with a aggressive theological justification for their disillusionment.

I would contend that the people leaving Catholicism over the sex abuse scandal and open to going to church aren’t looking for the fuzzy lukewarmness and progressive morality that all too often characterizes other denominations with similar liturgical practice. The disillusioned are looking for moral certainty and a return to what they view as the basics of Christian morality. One cannot find this moral certainty in the Episcopalian or mainline Protestant denominations with all their internecine wars over abortion and homosexuality, to name just two hot button issues. Baptists, on the other hand, give the impression of confidence in traditional morality, which would be a great comfort to someone who is disillusioned the abandonment of the basics.

Couple traditional morality with an aggressive anti-Catholic theology that characterizes so many Baptist circles, and one has both a positive attraction and a theological justification to back up one’s repulsion from moral scandal. It has been my experience (as one who was baptized as a Baptist) that this justification is often fundamentally based on lies and misunderstanding about Catholic doctrine, but most Catholics don’t know their faith well enough to spot that, especially the kind of Catholics willing to consider joining modern Christian denominations over scandal. The uncatechized are only too willing to let their local Bible study leader tell them why Baptists are right and Catholics are wrong, even though the descriptions of “unBiblical” Catholic theology bear little resemblance to actual Catholicism.

pentamom
November 17th, 2011 | 8:42 am

Just as long as we aren’t arguing about the One Real Reason that individual people are doing something on the order of maybe as much as a million, we’re fine. Probably most of the things that have been mentioned here play into it. When we start saying, “No, it’s not this, it’s that!” about decisions independently made by many thousands of people, we’ve left the path of reason.

Rod Dreher
November 17th, 2011 | 10:04 am

I would contend that the people leaving Catholicism over the sex abuse scandal and open to going to church aren’t looking for the fuzzy lukewarmness and progressive morality that all too often characterizes other denominations with similar liturgical practice. The disillusioned are looking for moral certainty and a return to what they view as the basics of Christian morality. One cannot find this moral certainty in the Episcopalian or mainline Protestant denominations with all their internecine wars over abortion and homosexuality, to name just two hot button issues. Baptists, on the other hand, give the impression of confidence in traditional morality, which would be a great comfort to someone who is disillusioned the abandonment of the basics.

That had something to do with why I left the Catholic Church in the wake of the scandal. To be sure, there was a theological element as well (I found I could no longer believe in Roman Catholic ecclesiological claims for authority), but I had for almost all of my Catholic life stayed faithful to the Church because of the Sacraments (especially, of course, the Eucharist), and in spite of the insipid, vapid nature of parish life and worship. So when I left, the only possible option was Orthodoxy.

Rod Dreher » Christian universalism is the new orthodoxy
November 17th, 2011 | 10:45 am

[...] a First Things combox discussion about Catholics who become Baptists, Terry Mattingly asks: On your second point: Is it safe to say [...]

rlr hope
November 17th, 2011 | 11:27 am

ihave several catholic friends,and we have gone to each others churches,even a sader meal at a catholic church. my question is if some catholics hold mary,and others on the same level as jesus,how could they truley convert to baptist.

mcurt2s
November 17th, 2011 | 1:33 pm

Our church has people from every denominational background (the majority are Baptists), and we want to respect and learn from one another’s traditions. We say, “Fill the Catholic churches, fill the Protestant churches, plant churches so that we can reach more of the lost in our city.” I pray that each church will be blessed and empowered to reach all the people God has called them to.

Pastor Spomer
November 17th, 2011 | 2:39 pm

Rod,
“but I had for almost all of my Catholic life stayed faithful to the Church because of the Sacraments (especially, of course, the Eucharist), and in spite of the insipid, vapid nature of parish life and worship. So when I left, the only possible option was Orthodoxy.”

Could I ask that you bless me with some constructive criticism? The more candid, the better, I’d think.
I assume that you would have considered conservative Lutheranism. It has traditional morality, historical liturgical ties, and Sacramental theology of the Real Presence. I would find you reasons for not joining the LC-MS or one of the other orthodox synods helpful in my own work. (Be frank, I can take it.)

Matthew
November 18th, 2011 | 12:19 am

I’ll offer a few thoughts as a cradle Catholic who left the Catholic Church for a number of years prior to returning.

We must be very careful not to lump all those who convert from Catholic Church to another church into the same group. Some will leave for philosophical reasons, others for theological, others for emotional, and still yet others out of mere convenience.

Among the many *devout* converts from Catholicism I have met over the years, there does, however, seem to be one overarching theme I hear time and again. That theme is authenticity. These converts did not believe they could be authentically Christian and remain Catholic. These people lost their faith in Catholic beliefs because of the hypocrisy and lack of holiness they saw in the clergy and the lukewarmness of the Catholic “faithful.” One can be catechized properly about the Eucharist, but if it is not treated by the priests and laity as the most holy gift that the Church proclaims that it is, will you believe it? Actions speak louder than words. Remember what Christ said about those who were neither “hot nor cold” in the Book of Revelation? And while insipid weekly liturgies surely can play their part in a convert’s departure, they are but an icon of a much deeper issue: a lack of committed daily discipleship, conversion, and leadership. A parish can execute the most beautiful liturgies, but if the priests are cursing in the parking lot, drunkenness is a regular feature at church festivals, and Sunday afternoon Bingo is taking in more money than the collection basket at Mass, its all just window dressing. It’s not authentic. And that’s just at the parish level.

While the precepts of Protestantism are less demanding than those of Catholicism, converts often experience the zeal of those living out those precepts, providing real, living role models of faith in action – both inside and outside the church walls. People are generally eager to share their faith and give generously of what God has granted them without needing to be nagged about it.

If the Catholic Church has any hope of gaining devout converts back, it needs to begin a process of transformation, post-haste. A popular blog has the slogan “Save the Liturgy, Save the World.” Perhaps the good Father who writes that blog has it backwards. Perhaps if the Church got back to the business of saving the world, the liturgy would in turn be saved without too much effort.

William Tighe
November 18th, 2011 | 9:00 am

Pastor Spomer,

I suppose that the sort of Catholics who turn Baptist might consider “conservative Lutheranism” (of the LC-MS, WELS or ELS variety) too much like the Catholicism that they are leaving, at least on some levels. If they are the sort of Catholics who like what used to be called “hootenanny Masses” they might find the CW crowd in Missouri attractive — but not “liturgical confessionalists;” and, alternatively, if they have “conservative” predilections, they might find CW repulsive and middle-of-the-road LCMS more-or-less what they decided to leave — and how easy would it be to stumble across a place like Zion, Detroit or Grace, Tulsa? Then, too, the doctrinal astringency of Lutheranism at its best might not appeal that much to those of a more “enthusiastic” me n’Jesus disposition, unless they were to plunge into the swamplands of an Americanized pietism; and since “evangelicals” (in the American sense of the term) do “that sort of thing” with more verve than Lutherans, why should they not go “where the action is?”

But your inquiry specifically concerns those who conclude that “the only possible option was Orthodoxy.” In that case, we are speaking mostly of people who follow their minds as much as they emotions, and are not fazed by turning their backs on what Harold Bloom termed (in his 1991 book of that title) “The American Religion” (Bloom sees indigenous forms of American Christianity as more Gnostic than Christian, and his two prime “exhibits” for his thesis are the Mormons and the Southern Baptists). Such people would not be disposed, I submit, to accept, especially if they have read widely in Church History and the Fathers, that (1) the Lutheran dogmatic understanding of Sola Fide can be found in any of the Church Fathers, or is even compatible with what they teach (often in passing) on the relationship of Faith, Grace, and Good Works, or (2) that the Lutheran understanding of ministry and ordination, that is, “that there is one pastoral office,” which levels the episcopate and the presbyterate, can be found anywhere in those same Fathers (beyond, arguably, ideas that St. Jerome expressed at some times, while expressing the contrary at others) or in the practice of the Early Church, i.e., rejection of the Catholic, Orthodox and (I dare say) Patristic understanding of this matter — much less Luther’s own personal understanding of it, which would permit “lay celebration” of the Eucharist etc., an understanding which, although arguably tacitly rejected by the Lutheran Confessions, has almost everywhere prevailed in “real existing Lutheranism” (cf. WELS on occasion allowing laywomen to celebrate “the Lord’s Supper” for groups consisting only of women), in America and elsewhere.

Such considerations as these might be wholly irrelevant (as well as incomprehensible) to Catholics who “swim the Cumberland,” but I think that they would be salient indeed to those who conclude that Orthodoxy is “the only possible option.”

Matthew
November 18th, 2011 | 10:30 am

Pastor Spomer,

I think William is mostly correct in his analysis. Most Catholics I know who converted to another form of Christianity, basically fall into three camps. There’s the group that is pretty much ignorant of the patristic writings of the Church (as was I). Then there’s the group that is aware of them, but believes that the institutional church was already falling away or had fallen away during that period, so their writings are of little, if any, authoritative value. Finally, there’s the group that is aware of them, and takes them seriously, and doesn’t see the modern Catholic Church living up to the doctrines and standards of those writings.

I’ve seen those in the last group turn in three directions when leaving institutional Catholicism. Many will choose to join a “traditionalist” Catholic community not in full-union with Rome, such as an SSPX chapel, or one affiliated with a sedevacantist Catholic group. Others, like Rod, have decided upon Eastern Orthodoxy. Finally, I have met some who have chosen an Anabaptist path (Hutterite, Conservative Mennonite, etc.), despite the lack of apostolic succession. The writer and author David Bercot comes to mind.

The principal question for these people is not so much whether the Catholic Church fell away, but when it fell away. Traditionalist Catholics will tell you it was Vatican II. Orthodox will tell you it was the Great Schism. And Anabaptists, at least the few willing to venture an opinion, will state the major falling away happened around the time of Constantine.

I am of the opinion that one’s view of the Patristic era will play heavily into the decision of where one goes after leaving the Roman Catholic Church. If one accepts the Patristic commentaries as authoritative, it would eliminate most (though not all) “Protestant” churches. I must confess my lack of personal specific knowledge about Lutheranism, though it has never struck me as having a particularly patristic bent about it, despite certain exterior similarities (liturgy, etc.). I am open to correction on this matter.

Christopher Johnson
November 18th, 2011 | 10:36 am

Ethan C.

Technically, since LCMS headquarters are located in a town called Kirkwood, Missouri, just outside St. Louis, joining the Missouri Synod should be called “swimming the Meramec” since that river borders Kirkwood. But since nobody who’s not from this area has ever heard of that river, I guess you could say “swimming the Mississippi and taking a cab.”

:-)

Pastor Spomer
November 18th, 2011 | 11:26 am

William and Matthew,
Thank you for your thoughtful responses. I am unacquainted with Harold Bloom. I’ll have to look into his work.

melxiopp
November 18th, 2011 | 11:57 am

Regarding patristics, there is great respect for patristics in confessional Lutheranism. My own introduction to the Fathers was in reading the Book of Concord – though I’d never heard of them growing up in a confessional Lutheran congregations. Chemnitz is also chock full of patristic proofs for the ‘patristic’ basis of Lutheran theology over and against the teachings of Rome (cf. “Examination of the Council of Trent”).

However, once one begins reading the Fathers outside of their quotation in a Lutheran contexct (whether in a Roman, Orthodox or academic context) it starts to become clear that such patristics are really just a form of hagiography and window treatment. It’s meant to be proof, but it’s really just preaching to the choir and sidestepping arguments and contradictions your audience doesn’t know enough to make. That is, patristic “proof” from Lutherans very quickly turns into at best a scattered and inconsistent witness to 1% light shining through 99% darkness (from the Lutheran perspective). That’s why most quotes end up being Scriptural exegesis.

melxiopp
November 18th, 2011 | 12:14 pm

As to why RCs are swimming the Cumberland, I think this says more about the watering down of distinctives in RC teaching and the rise in the Baptist/Evangelical style in ‘general, American Christianity’. Add to this the generational acculturation common to immigrants holding a faith (RCism) that is still heavily weighted with being an ‘immigrant faith’ in – whether new immigrants to the US (e.g., Hispanics) or migration to fast-growing regions in the South and West that have historically smaller RC populations than the NE and Midwest, not to mention intermarriage and the “lower bar” for entry ‘cross the Cumberland, and it’s no wonder nominal Catholics might prefer the Baptist church to the Catholic church in town.

William Tighe
November 18th, 2011 | 2:01 pm

In my haste in writing and then proofreading my comment earlier today, I left out the following, which was meant to come at the end of the second of its three paragraphs:

“Lutherans will argue that their doctrine and/or practice on these matters is “Scriptural,” and that this is the important thing, even “the one thing necessary,” but, then, so will antipaedobaptists, seventh-day sabbatarians, and those who make foot-washing “a gospel ordinance.” If (as seems to be the case) those whom we are discussing in this paragraph are dubious about Sola Scriptura as well, they may well choose (as I did, decades ago) to adopt for themselves a historicized version of Tertullian’s De Praescriptione and rule out any “option” whose dogmatic commitments and sacramental practices are so clearly at odds with what we can know about the Church Fathers and the practice of the Early Church.”

That Was The Week That Was « The Pietist Schoolman
November 19th, 2011 | 8:49 am

[...] Galli’s remarks started with the phenomenon of evangelical scholars like Christian Smith and Francis Beckwith converting to Catholicism. Joe Carter considers the lesser known but increasingly common trend of Catholics becoming Southern Baptists. [...]

Tom
November 22nd, 2011 | 7:34 pm

As a Catholic who is now a member of the PCA, the reason I left was the futility of trying to earn my salvation. Couldn’t do it, no matter how hard the 8th grade nun told us to. Salvation by God’s grace through Jesus’ death on the cross–there’s the real thing!

Patrick Sampson
November 23rd, 2011 | 10:39 am

As a Catholic, I have no desire to leave the Church for another one especially the Southern Baptist which has been on the wrong side of history on almost every moral and social issue. One of the solid and beautiful things about Catholicism is its teaching on social justice (what you do to the least you do to me – Jesus). And its sense of “us” as a family of God instead of just “me” and “my” faith and “my” lord and “my” salvation. Many Catholics who wander to other faiths usually don’t stay long – growing tired of them too or finding them lacking in depth.

Donald R. McClarey
November 27th, 2011 | 12:54 pm

Stacy Trasancos has an interesting post on her conversion from Baptist to Catholic:

http://whyimcatholic.com/index.php/conversion-stories/protestant-converts/baptist/item/73-baptist-convert-stacy-trasancos