Social Learning Links, 5/7/2025

Jonathan Rauch on religious drift; Ed West on progressive conservatism; Saagar Enjeti on the gambling industry; Claire Lehmann on Moral Certainty

Interviewed by Brink Lindsey, Jonathan Rauch says,

Thin Christianity is what happens to the mainline, the ecumenical church. And starting in the mid-century and then accelerating, it secularizes. It loses its anchoring in the countercultural message of Jesus and in the scripture. And it becomes more like a social movement. It drifts to the left and it becomes about social justice. It loses its distinctiveness. Increasingly, people say, "Well, if I want to be engaged in social justice, I don't have to give up my Sunday morning for that." They drift off. And by the end of the century, the main line churches are culturally really almost irrelevant, which is astounding. Because the world I grew up in in the '60s and '70s, the first thing people often asked each other when they met is, "What church do you belong to?"

The drift toward social justice is also very apparent in the largest Jewish denominations, especially Reform. I think that the causality runs from the outside in. That is, young people want to have social justice advocacy as part of their identity, and the clerics want to appeal to young people, so the churches and synagogues drift toward social justice. In a variety of ways, the process of becoming a rabbi or Christian cleric selects for social justice types.

But Rauch warns religious leaders that this is not the answer.

If the church doesn't have a teaching in which there is a transcendent higher mission in life that is rewarding and fulfilling Christ-like if it's a Christian church, it will fail. So, my view is what they're doing now, substituting partisan politics for that kid of civic theology, is failing. It will help. It may not solve the problem, but it will help if the church begins and goes about the work of creating a civic theology which is more Christ-like.

Ed West writes,

By the time of the 2010s, conservatives had exited from many areas of public life, the most extreme example being academia, so that the zealots of the Great Awokening were protesting for what were then already established norms. It was not an uprising, nor a rebellion, but a victory dance. But it was also an outpouring of frustration about the unachieved goals of the revolution; racial equality of outcome had not been achieved, because it is unachievable; romantic disappointment and sexual betrayal had not been overcome, because that is the human condition. Women’s happiness had actually declined since the sexual revolution, and anxiety levels among liberal-minded adolescents had rocketed.

Saagar Enjeti is interviewed by Aaron Renn on the topic of sports betting.

Enjeti makes a strong case against the sports gambling industry. This is one of those issues where I think that libertarianism gives the wrong answer, which is that if people choose to gamble, the state should not interfere with that choice. In this case, the asymmetry between what the sports betting companies have going for them in terms of statistical knowledge and ability to lobby legislators on the one hand, and the susceptible individuals on the other, is too much for me to take the libertarian view.

Recall my reaction to NFBC fantasy baseball.

My impression is that NFBC is selecting for people who like to gamble. If you like to gamble, then for your own good you should stay away. If you don’t like to gamble, then you may feel like you clicked into an alien environment, which is how I felt.

Interviewed by Yascha Mounk, Claire Lehmann says,

the person who is able to separate out morality from accuracy is a surprisingly rare person. So, being able to decouple what is true from what is good doesn't come naturally to us. We have to be trained to think that way. It's just very natural for people to confuse their moral outlook with the way the world should be. Any kind of facts or theories or ideas that run contrary to the way they think the world should be is deemed as threatening or taboo and worthy of censure.

…competitive victimhood signaling correlates with narcissism. So, people who present themselves as victims and use victimhood to gain social or cultural currency do tend to have, on average, more narcissistic traits, which I think is fascinating.

substacks referenced above:

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Claire Lehmann on The Psychology Behind Wokeness

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How Sports Betting Apps Hook You and Destroy Lives | Saagar Enjeti

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The 2020ers

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Jonathan Rauch on Christianity and Democracy