David A. Hollinger

A brilliant, if deeply partisan book.

The Enlightenment is such second nature to the author, so much like breathing air, that it is utterly impossible for him to imagine what it is like to be one of his conservative Christian enemies, much less credit their positions with any value or even good faith. For contrast, you could consider someone like Peter Brown, who is an atheist but able to penetrate deeply and sympathetically into the mental world of his early Christian subjects.

For Hollinger, there is never any doubt about who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. That said, the book is engrossing, thought-provoking and a pleasure to read.… (mere)

LT, After Cloven Tongues of Fire, David Hollinger, reviewed by George Marsden in B&C 1-2/14; thesis: (believing Christians) Christianity as a legitimate worldview should be allowed in secular universities/mainstream academia/the contemporary marketplace of ideas

American culture today, he argues, is best understood as post-Protestant. As late as 1960 anything big in America was likely to be run by someone of Protestant background. In the mid-20th century mainline Protestants could still speak as though they had a proprietary oversight of the culture as a whole. One of Hollinger's most important themes is that Protestantism had succeeded in retaining its influence in mainstream culture by accommodating itself to the American Enlightenment. Darwinism had threatened to disrupt that accommodation, but post-Darwinian Protestants found various ways to preserve aspects of their heritage that could survive in the new scientific age.

... Hollinger has been dead-set against the project that many readers of this magazine would endorse: the project of making mainstream intellectual life more open to scholars who explicitly ask what difference traditional Christian theism or other religious-intellectual traditions might make in understanding and relating to the rest of reality. After Cloven Tongues of Fire not only reiterates that opposition, it also offers important insights for understanding why such an honorable and clear-headed person would so strongly oppose what seems to many of us an eminently reasonable proposal.

Hollinger's autobiographical essay, written to explain why he became an historian, provides a vivid account of his conversion from a parochial to a cosmopolitan outlook. Born in 1941, he spent his earliest years in Idaho, where his father served as a Church of the Brethren pastor. His family was deeply shaped by its Pennsylvania Brethren and Mennonite heritage and, as is typical in pastors' families, David learned to categorize people by whether or not they went to one of the "right" churches...

... He was shocked to find churchgoing people who had never heard of Albert Schweitzer. He was also deeply put off by the emotionalism of Southern Baptists whom he met. His mother, who had been raised in the Church of the Nazarene, had warned him against such things.

Hollinger became deeply fascinated with the theme of tensions between provincialism and cosmopolitanism. He embraced cosmopolitanism and universalism.

It is easy to appreciate, then, why someone who has been a champion of such a socially universalist trans-ethnic outlook should view those of us who want to strengthen the public academic presence of particularist faith-informed viewpoints as entirely misguided... Especially when the Religious Right speaks of returning America to its Christian roots, a political and intellectual universalist will see warning signs of a reversion to a Protestant-dominated America far more pernicious than that of the tolerant ecumenism of mid-century. So when we Christian scholars argue for more openness to our ideas in the academy, Hollinger sees that as playing into the hands of the Religious Right.

Hollinger speaks for many secularists in the academy, and we can learn from his perceptions and concerns. He is correct that establishmentarian Christianity has difficulty providing social and political equity in the presence of demographic diversification. So the best response is to make clear that we stand for non-Constantinian anti-establishment Christianity that favors equity in pluralistic settings but is not primarily about politics or the social order [so certain areas are off-limits to Christian thinking?]. I know from experience that people like Hollinger are not reassured by such declarations in the light of the long history of Christian establishmentarianism. Nonetheless, one might hope that eventually our scholarship and our behavior might convince some such critics that more thoughtful versions of traditional Christianity might be encouraged as an alternative to the less thoughtful and more populist versions.

... The mainstream academy is not a place where such openness could be reversed [or rearranged?]. But I also think that the disestablishment of Protestantism involved an overcorrection that favored non-theistic outlooks and marginalized religious views more than was necessary. So now a willingness to evaluate religiously-based outlooks on their merits, instead of as covert efforts to regain lost political authority, would be a step toward a more healthy balance of various religious and secular viewpoints.

... Hollinger and I came on the intellectual scene in the mid-20th century. C. S. Lewis, who was no slouch as an intellectual historian himself, referred to it at the time as "chronological snobbery." Particularly Lewis was referring to the supposed demystification of reality based on generalizing from the practical successes of the naturalistic scientific method. Lots of mid-century people agreed with Rudolph Bultmann when he said it was impossible to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles in the age of "the electric light and the wireless." It turns out that Lewis was right and Bultmann was wrong. Just as an empirical fact, a great many 21st-century people, including many Christian intellectuals, do find it possible to believe in such things in the age of modern science. Hollinger and others may think they are benightedly wrong-headed in doing so, and he may want to argue with Christian philosophers about what are legitimate warrants for their beliefs. But it is not a good argument to claim that there is a consensus among the educated that these issues have been settled.

... Demystification is still strong in much of the North Atlantic West, but the North Atlantic West is not the center of civilization. Around the world, highly supernaturalist religions—including many varieties of Christianity—are doing a lot more than surviving. Furthermore, as 21st-century America is becoming more diversified, it is not always becoming more secularized. Rather, the waves of new immigration have included many highly religious people representing every world faith. Some of these believers are highly educated. So, it seems strangely dated and parochially Western to speak of the intellectual and cultural triumph of secularism as though it were a settled matter. That is not to engage in the chronological snobbery of saying the later is necessarily better. It is just to say that in these days it will not do to act as though non-theistic views should get an epistemic pass any more than should Christian views.

So how are we to deal with the question of religion in American public life in this new circumstance [setting, zeighteist]? Hollinger holds on to the idea of a more consistent privatization in public life. When he asks whether religious ideas should "be critically engaged or given a pass," he is speaking directly only of politics. He makes the reasonable point that politicians who declare religious bases for their views should not be immune from having those views critically examined... Politics is not a suitable place for serious discussions or debates about anything, let alone religion. But the public academy can provide just such a forum. It should be a model for dealing with issues of diversity, including religiously based diversity, in public life. For instance, a secularist such as Hollinger strongly holds a number of beliefs about human rationality and moral principles. The public academy provides the best place where there might be debate about whether non-theistic assumptions provide adequate grounds for such views or whether some sort of theism might provide better grounds. Those issues are not going to be easily settled, of course, but universities are the best places where such civil discussions should continue to take place and be encouraged.… (mere)