Haeralis
Puritan Board Freshman
The President's new pick for the Supreme Court had me thinking even more about the serious lack of Reformed theology in positions of intellectual power. Four out of five of the President's nominees were Roman Catholic and only one was vaguely evangelical, though not Reformed to anyone's knowledge. Why is it the case that there seem to be virtually no bright young Reformed Protestants graduating from Harvard, Yale, or Columbia law school?
Even more strangely, in my own field of political philosophy, you'd be hard pressed to find a single major conservative academic who is a Reformed Protestant. In George Nash's The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, Nash wrote:
"The new conservatives’ brand of Christianity was often of a decidedly Roman Catholic, even medieval cast."
"One of the most remarkable features of this movement [conservatism] was that, in a country still substantially Protestant, its leadership was heavily Roman Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, or critical of Protestant Christianity."
"One is even tempted to say that the new conservatism was, in part, an intellectual cutting edge of the postwar “coming of age” of America’s [Roman] Catholic minority."
"A disproportionate number of conservative intellectuals in the 1950s were [Roman] Catholics."
Going down the list of famous conservative intellectuals, it is next to impossible to find a single conservative Protestant.
Eric Voegelin -- Radically anti-Protestant Romanist
Russell Kirk -- Romanist
G.K. Chesterton -- Romanist
Wilmoore Kendall -- Romanist
Richard Weaver -- Vaguely theistic but not explicitly Christian, either Roman or Protestant
Leo Strauss -- Secular Jew
Harry Jaffa -- Secular Jew
Friedrich Hayek -- Agnostic
C.S. Lewis -- Anglo-Catholic
Why is it that a country so historically grounded in Protestant Christianity produces so few intellectuals and scholars who are committed to the Protestant conservative legal / political vision?
Even more strangely, in my own field of political philosophy, you'd be hard pressed to find a single major conservative academic who is a Reformed Protestant. In George Nash's The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, Nash wrote:
"The new conservatives’ brand of Christianity was often of a decidedly Roman Catholic, even medieval cast."
"One of the most remarkable features of this movement [conservatism] was that, in a country still substantially Protestant, its leadership was heavily Roman Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, or critical of Protestant Christianity."
"One is even tempted to say that the new conservatism was, in part, an intellectual cutting edge of the postwar “coming of age” of America’s [Roman] Catholic minority."
"A disproportionate number of conservative intellectuals in the 1950s were [Roman] Catholics."
Going down the list of famous conservative intellectuals, it is next to impossible to find a single conservative Protestant.
Eric Voegelin -- Radically anti-Protestant Romanist
Russell Kirk -- Romanist
G.K. Chesterton -- Romanist
Wilmoore Kendall -- Romanist
Richard Weaver -- Vaguely theistic but not explicitly Christian, either Roman or Protestant
Leo Strauss -- Secular Jew
Harry Jaffa -- Secular Jew
Friedrich Hayek -- Agnostic
C.S. Lewis -- Anglo-Catholic
Why is it that a country so historically grounded in Protestant Christianity produces so few intellectuals and scholars who are committed to the Protestant conservative legal / political vision?