Postmodernism is waning. Traditionalism is ascendant. People are nostalgic for a simpler time: They brought raw milk and smoking jackets back into vogue, and turned sundresses into a legitimate craze. “Trad” is the definitive response to 15 years of “woke.” As this becomes clear, it also becomes apparent that no one grasps what that truly means.
As soon as “woke” became a term at all, it became a semantically overloaded, political catch-all term. No one could define it, but right and left knew it when they saw it. It operated entirely on vibes, and it was popular because it felt cool. It stopped being popular as soon as that feeling evaporated.
“Trad” is a direct reply to woke, so it naturally has the same problem. It’s a vibe. Ask seven people what it means, and you’ll get seven different answers — the closest approximation is some vague, novel combination of conservatism and religion. But show those same people a picture or meme, and everyone will agree if it’s trad or not.
Like its woke progenitor, trad has quickly become invincible. Gallup reports that social conservatism is reaching its highest popularity since the early 2010s outbreak of postmodernism, and the public influence of religiosity has recently reversed its fall. And in a similar way, if not much quicker, the trad fad will crash and burn like woke did. It is fleeting, and what’s worse, we’ve willingly tethered this political millstone to the Church.
Christianity is cool right now — which ought to alarm us. The virtues of humility, forgiveness, self-denial, discipline, suffering, and slavery to righteousness necessarily clash with every human society, the West included. One single look at social media shows that the newfangled coolness of conservative-minded faiths is driven heavily by the “aura” of traditional religions. The Islam creeping into the right-wing “manosphere” offers a more dominant masculinity than the West is accustomed to. Catholicism has an unwavering ornateness and pageantry. Baptist and reformed congregations like mine often have a simplicity reminiscent of a purer time.
Like the sower of the Gospels, we Christians gaze triumphantly upon a field rich with simplistic living, conservative ideals, and church participation — as if the Christian life could be reduced to these. Have we forgotten that we sow among rocks and thorns? Anyone who knows the parable understands that the field will yield only a fraction of what we expect.
Appearances disappoint, and those that don’t quickly become boring. We see it in John 6: Jesus laments the people of Capernaum for following him simply because he appeared to be giving out free loaves. He loudly recalls Exodus to explain why he will no longer do this, as the Israelites back then grumbled over their bread the moment they craved something new. The truth he then proclaims is that he is the true bread, but nobody wants to hear that. They all leave.
For a college community that so harshly criticizes previous Christian revivals from the Great Awakenings to Billy Graham to the ad campaign “He Gets Us,” we ought to understand that popular gospels — gospels masked in societally acceptable garb — fail. The gospel Jesus preached promised pain, poverty, and suffering. Therein lay its radiance.
And for those convinced this time is different because it’s more Catholic, curb your enthusiasm. The Roman wave Alexis de Tocqueville predicted in “Democracy in America” has yet to materialize. Between births and converts, Islam is still globally outgrowing Christianity. And in America particularly, as Pew Research shared in February, Protestant churches — led by independent and Baptist congregations — still not only dwarf the Roman Catholic Church in conversions, but make more converts out of Catholics than any other sect or religion.
Somehow, we imagine that we couldn’t possibly be Israel or Capernaum of John 6. We proudly embrace a movement built on the appearance of that better life, based on that picture of a former time that everyone agrees was “trad.” But where we agree in images, we disagree in actuality. This will be the fate of the trad fad — the wheat can’t hide rocks and thorns forever.
When the world from the picture inevitably fails to return with proper speed or strength, those among the rocks will fall away. The thorns will continue to grow apace as trads become bored of the movement, embracing a nominally Christian yet explicitly vengeful utopian politics. Nick Fuentes and his sycophant Joel Webbon already lead an expanding army of Groypers using the guise of “based and trad” toward identitarian ends neither Christian nor conservative. And as the politics of trad loses its saltiness, so will its religion. That saltiness cannot be restored.
Grafting Christianity onto the withering roots of a political coalition compromises the branch. It will languish as quickly as it sprouts. Before reaching for power in God’s name, we ought to recall his example: Though the expectation of Christ the king made converts, the reality of Christ the suffering servant made disciples. He told us to go about making the latter.
Welcome though it is, this nostalgia for olden days will pass; it’s a moment, a fad. The truth of the Gospel will not; it is neither. It’s time for the trad fad to start growing at the root and not the sprout.
Lewis Thune is a senior studying politics.
