One from a man named Colin Wright, who seems to suggest that he is still the liberal he always was, but the Left has gone so radical that it pigeonholed him into the right side of the debate. His breaking point appears to be when he, a scientist, was attacked for insisting the science does lean toward the biological reality of a person informing that person's sex.
The other is from Mike Lewis, former conservative Catholic and current contributor to Where Peter Is, who has abandoned traditional conservative Christians and Catholics when he realized how wrong they are. I'm not sure I can find a breaking point with Lewis, other than the conservatives who don't agree with Pope Francis and believe Pope Francis upends historical Catholic teaching.
In some ways, they both make the same basic argument: It isn't I who left X, but X left me.
I was going to comment on some obvious differences, but I thought I'd just throw these links out there for now and see what others notice. I'll toss in my two cents down the road.
Only one of these guys is describing what happened to him accurately. The other once worked for the USCCB, which is a pretty big red flag regarding what kind of lens he’s probably viewing things through.
ReplyDeleteIt appears he was once a 'conservative Christian' or tacked along with the Religious Right as it was called. I don't know the timeline when he worked for the USCCB, and don't know how that might or might not have impacted him. I'm just shocked as I watch so many who were from more conservative Protestant backgrounds now embracing the Church's more progressive sympathies, sometimes almost militantly. I'm sure that means something too.
DeleteI could see a protestant convert becoming a bit too zealous in devotion to the Pope because of the nature of protestant vs catholic and just how converts tend to be. If a bunch of the converts tend to be Rex Mottram (from Brideshead Revisited) then when you have a more liberal/left-leaning pope, you would start to get those issues.
DeleteI'm inclined to agree with Nate. I am a cradle Catholic, but until I was 13, I barely had any idea there was a pope or who he was. I knew the 3-6 priests who had served my area over the years, and that there was a bishop somewhere far away from my little parish, but my faith existed independently from any real sense of Church hierarchy. It was not difficult for me to choose to consciously ignore Francis a year into his papacy when I could see how it was going to go. My faith still existed independently from any fealty to a particular pope. However, if I had had to overcome the obstacle of Papal primacy to convert, I might be more inclined to equate loyalty to the doctrine with loyalty to the individual in the chair of Peter at all costs.
DeleteNate, I think that Pope Francis's defenders have done more to reinforce the stereotype that it's the job of Catholics everywhere to mindlessly obey whatever the pope says than anything I remember as a non-Catholic. The good news is that today, a large swath of Protestants and non-Catholics probably don't care one way or another about such old arguments anyway.
DeleteThe fundamental difference: in the first case, the individuals views remain the same, and so s/he becomes disillusioned with the movement/party/religion/group whose ideological position has shifted. Example, one might say "I used to be align with the Left because of their strong defense of freedom of speech, but not the Left seems to pushing for censorship."
ReplyDeleteIn the second case, the individuals views change over time, usually in line with what is fashionable or what the current powers that be hold. The individual distances himself/herself from the former group because that group still holds onto those icky old time beliefs that are out of vogue.
That has been #1 difference that I've seen with the Never Trumpers versus those on the Left who have begun to criticize the Left. People like Bill Maher or John Cleese even are still secular liberals and everything that goes with it. But they draw the line and openly condemn what should be the most obvious and problematic developments in the modern Left (sometimes forgetting that they helped plant the seeds that are now bearing fruit). Those who have gone all Never Trump increasingly sound like the liberals they once condemned, and sometimes even join with them and defend them, while accepting anything the Left has ever said about anything.
DeleteThe "NeverTrumpers" are a residue. Some of them are just shills. The rest are telling you what they valued all along. It was not what you valued.
Delete