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In my circles on twitter, the Mystical Christianity conversation is cropping up again. It tends to come around every few months, at least for the past year I've been on the site.
Tyler Alterman writes a long post on it that is mostly summed up here:
Now to broaden this outside of just Christianity, I'm curious what the Motte thinks of symbolism as a whole? I will admit my own path back to religion came via a symbolic pathway, although I believe it goes far deeper than this.
That being said, from my short time here it seems like most of the Christians on this site aren't that into symbolism, and tend to be more "rationalist" and materialist in their worldview. Again, might have a mistaken impression.
I know this is a rationalist offshoot forum so not sure I expect a ton of mystical/symbolic discussion, but I'm kind of surprised by how little there is given how many professed religious folks there are here. And I do think from a Culture War angle, that materialism is definitely losing steam (especially amongst the right) as we see more and more cracks form in the edifice of Expert Scientific Opinion(tm).
On a deeper note, the symbolic worldview is all about seeing the world through the language of God (or meaning if you prefer), in a way that helps people bind together and understand events in the same way. Right now we are in "darkness" symbolically because, well, nobody can interpret events the same way! I personally think a return to the symbolic is inevitable given how confused everything is at the moment, although the transition may not be smooth or easy.
I truly truly do not understand why these people don't just go be Catholic.
It's ancient, and mysterious (it's 2000 years old)
It has nearly unlimited "aura"; home to the most beautiful buildings and art on earth
There is unlimited amounts of "mysticism" if that's what you're looking for. Most churches hold something called "adoration" where they open the tabernacle and allow people to sit and pray in what they (we) consider the true presence of the body of Christ.
Continuing on the mysticism, there are things like The Rosary, and holy water.
If you want to try and get "Buddhism but Christian", you're in luck. We have prayer beads (the rosary), mantras (prayers), monks, ancient philosophy and meditation.
I don't even know how to properly address the "science" question that people seem to want to throw at religious people as a Catholic. There is nothing in Catholicism which is incompatible with wanting to pursue science and we Catholics would consider scientific inquiry a good thing. The big bang, evolution, whatever els, etc. these things are all not just "allowed" within the doctrine, but encouraged.
I think there's a weird thing happening where the new atheists did a good job of attacking the absurd claims of evangelical protestantism, but somehow lumped the Catholics in with them. I think people are waking up to this, but the contrarianism that led them to atheism to begin with doesn't let them just return to the obvious answer (the Catholic church). I think that's basically also why you see some of these people gravitating towards the Eastern Orthodox church. They can't just go be OG Christians, you see, they have to find this other offshoot thing so that they can maintain some sense that they were always right, and that the "real" church was hidden or something.
Just go be Catholic. It's annoying how obvious the answer to all of this is. There's nothing clever or surprising, it really just was the most obvious thing all along.
I would guess that many Orthodox converts in US sincerely go for Orthodoxy instead of Catholicism because they've looked into the history and other such things and sincerely concluded that it is Orthodoxy that is the original church and Catholicism the innovating offshoot. (Locally, in Finland, Catholicism isn't even much of an option for many, since it's an even-tinier and more foreign a minority than Orthodoxy.)
That's probably a tiny minority of very academically-minded converts. As a recent convert in the US in a parish full of recent converts and catechumens and I can tell you that for most of us, the draw was something that is at once utterly at the core of our civilization but at the same time outside of the mainstream enough to not be corrupted by the various forces that pushed us into the Church from wherever we were before.
We have young people coming from broken/divorced families realizing that we have no cultural infrastructure left to build our own families on. We are disillusioned with political solutions to problems. This tends to start with a disgust with the excesses of the left, but I find that most of the "political refugees" that come into the church seeking solely a spiritual justification for their right-wing politics either end up leaving, or in the better case, they find that the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church transcends the political squabbles of 2025 America (though the Church is undeniably traditionalist on many social issues). The scientific enterprise is utterly unable to offer meaning, point ways to build community, and show ways to walk with the divine. Of course, any honest scientist must admit that these are domains outside of the scientific purview. But, especially after COVID, it became obvious to many of us that even in its own domain, the scientific institutions are all too fragile and corrupt -- all too fallen and sinful we come to find out. Perennial problems, but perhaps acutely so in the decadent, post-enlightenment, post-liberal west.
In the face of this, where are we to seek stability, truth, and life more abundant? Protestantism is seen as either dominated by the religion of liberalism (Episcopalian churches with rainbow flags on the outside, and no one inside) or otherwise by fundamentalist young earth creationist types, who cannot be taken seriously by many with even a little bit of curiosity. Relative to the High Church traditions of the Latin Catholics and Orthodoxy, Protestants are also seen as utterly devoid of ritual, which is something I think most Western people are starving for without realizing it. It's hard to get a sense of the Divine without embodying and acting out the symbols and metaphors which point to our ability to the relate to God. Without embodied metaphors (ie rituals), it's hard to focus the mind and find the weightiness of certain moments and places compared to others. Without this weightiness, there is nothing set aside (ie sacred). Every place and moment is fungible, profane. The wet dream of economism.
Why not Catholicism? It's a close second for sure, especially in its traditionalist dispensations, but I think it gets rightly associated with many of the utilitarian/rationalistic excesses of the contemporary West. If the mainstream itself has grown decadent, it's only right to find fault with the largest religious institution of the West. There is a whole new conversation to have here about the Eastern vs Western churches, but suffice it to say that, especially post Vatican II, the Latin Catholic Church has itself become a part of the profane decadent mainstream which it is supposed to be a bulwark against (I recently attended a Catholic Mass which had stadium seating -- with the altar on a stage below the people -- and PowerPoint-style projections of song lyrics and pictures related to the service. Hard to imagine something less otherworldly than that experience). And there are also the sex scandals.
Not to say there are no flaws in Orthodoxy as currently practiced in the West. The earthly Church is not the Heavenly Church. Not fully. Not yet...
It's only after some time in Orthodoxy do we learn about the history and the arguments that it is the original Church. But I think the results speak louder than any history lesson.
Not a tiny minority at my church, I'd say it's over half the converts that get convinced at least partially by the historical differences of the two churches. Just an anecdote.
Also yeah, my first experience of mass was in a gym. Suffice to say I was much more impressed with the Divine Liturgy.
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