Has anyone kept up with Molly Worthen’s (UNC history professor) recent conversion to evangelical Christianity? She discusses it in this podcast:
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She says that she was convinced by the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. This whole episode is bizarre and interesting.
This episode is just another in a long line of intellectuals and scholars who become convinced of the veracity of a particular mythical belief system and then are attracted to the most emotion based simplistic version of the belief system to heal some metaphorical hole in the psyche. Perhaps an evangelical/fundamentalist community seems to fill gaps in the psychological profile that could not be filled by a more cerebral version of the belief system, e.g., a Roman Catholic Jesuit church congregation or even a Catholic charismatic group. I think we’ve “lost” some good people to the “feel good” emotional frenzy of new belief and group-think.
I knew her when I was a grad student at UNC and her conversion – especially to an evangelical denomination – is surprising and really strange to me.
But listening to her description of her conversion it sounds rather inevitable. Maybe she’s interpreting in retrospect. But notice she does surround herself by authority figures from only a certain perspective. Most of our most profound decisions in life take place on a unconscious level. It would be interesting to ask her what evangelicalism provides that other flavors of Christianity do not. I imagine it’s the vigorous community. I also wonder how her politics will change. Will she drift rightwards?
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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