Audio only:
In this episode Trent shows how reports about “the death of Protestantism” have been grossly exaggerated.
Transcription:
How can I, a Catholic apologist, say that Protestantism is “winning”? Does that mean I’m a traitor?
No, it means I’m not here to tell my largely Catholic audience what they want to hear. I’m hear to tell them the truth just like I’d tell a hard truth to any non-Catholic who watches my channel.
Now, by “winning” I don’t mean Protestantism has attained the best worldview or that it expresses the fullness of the Christian faith. I mean that Protestantism is growing much faster than Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy so it’s absurd for Catholics or Orthodox to crow about how “Protestantism is dead”, “everybody’s becoming Catholic or “the future is Orthodox”.
I agree there has been a resurgence of interest online in the ancient traditions of Catholic and Orthodox churches. And maybe you’ve personally heard of a lot of conversions out of Protestantism on the Internet. I get people emailing me all time thanking me for how this channel helped them choose to become Catholic and if you’d like to help us keep doing that, then please hit the subscribe and go over and support us at trenthornpodcast.com
And whenever I hear that I say “praise be to God.” But the internet isn’t real life and when we stay in an online bubble we can get a distorted view of reality, like thinking that seeing many online stories about protestant converts to Catholicism means everybody’s becoming Catholic.
I’m also not the only Catholic who has noticed this bad news. Eric Sammons at Crisis Magazine wrote an excellent summary of the latest Pew Research Religious Landscape Report and the findings are brutal for Catholics. Sammons writes:
Only 19% of Americans self-identify as Catholic, down from 24% in 2007. This is a 20% decrease. By comparison, Protestants decreased by 21%, while religious “nones” increased by 81% and Muslims increased by an astounding 200% (although they still make up a small percentage of the overall population—only 1.2%). Even though the Pew Survey headline suggests that the decline in Christianity in this country may have “leveled off,” it’s clear the overall direction is downward.
I going to pick a few specific religions covered in the report to show how Catholics have been especially losing ground in the past decade. Among the survey’s 35,000 respondents:
46% were raised Protestant, 30.2% were raised Catholic, point 8 percent were raised Orthodox, 2.1 percent were raised LDS, aka Mormon, and 12.6 percent were raised without any religion. But of that same group today only 40 percent identify as Protestant, 18.9 percent identify as Catholic, point 7 percent identify as Orthodox, 1.5 percent identify as Mormon, and 29.4 percent identify as religiously unaffiliated.
This means that the biggest gain of adherents were for those who have no religion. 20% of people in the sample went from being religious to having no religion. Of those who switched between religious groups, 7.6% became Protestant, 1.5% became Catholic, point 3 percent became Orthodox, and point four percent became Mormon. But we have balance this against the people who left each of those groups.
For example, 3.5 percent of people stopped being non-religious, but that still leaves a huge net gain for the non-religious. In my previous episode on the death of the new atheism I talked about how strident, militant forms of atheism are on the decline. But that doesn’t preclude more generic worldviews, like the kind that believes in God but not organized religion, from increasing.
When it comes to those who switched out of belief systems, 13.7% were Protestant, 12.8 percent were Catholic, point 3 percent were Orthodox, and one percent were Mormon.
To put it another way, the study says that for every 100 people who become Protestant, 180 left Protestantism. However, for every 100 people who become Catholic, 840 people left Catholicism. And for every 100 people who become religious, 590 people give up religion.
The Eastern Orthodox are basically on par with Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus in representing one percent of the U.S. population and staying relatively stagnant in terms of population.
One Orthodox account on X notes that while some parishes are growing in converts others you don’t hear about are declining. And unlike Catholicism which has grown globally over the past century, Orthodoxy has shrunk. In 1910 it represented 20% of the global Christian population but in 2010 it only comprised 12% of the global population, with most of its adherents residing in Eastern Europe. Finally, Oriental Orthodoxy that emerged from disputes over the council of Chalcedon in the fifth century is growing much faster than Eastern Orthodoxy, and the groups are often conflated.
So Eastern Orthodox who say “the future is Orthodox” are having mild delusions of grandeur. But Catholics who say America is becoming a Catholic country are having a major hallucinatory episode. Once again, you can’t judge reality based on what a social media algorithm feeds you because social media companies don’t want to give you truth, they just want to give whatever keeps you clicking which creates a comfortable echo chamber around users made up of posts they want to see.
Protestantism isn’t doing great either, but they are “winning” in the sense that of the top three major religious groups in America, they are experiencing the least decline. Look at it this way:
46% of Americans in this sample were raised Protestant and 40% are still Protestant, a 15% decline. 30% were raised Catholic and 19% are still Catholic, a 36% decline. The number three religious group aren’t Eastern Orthodox or Muslims, but Mormons with 2.1 percent being raised Mormon and only 1.5% remaining Mormon, which represents a 25% decline.
But wait, you may be asking, how could the Catholic Church have 8 people leave for every 1 convert but only experience a 20% decline in overall members? Sammons correctly identifies the answer:
there’s something that keeps the numbers slightly afloat: immigration. As the Pew Survey itself states, “immigration has helped to bolster the number of Catholics in the United States.” So while millions are fleeing the Catholic Church, new migrants keep the overall numbers from looking horrific.
We also should look at where former Catholics go after they leave Catholicism. Pew says 32% become Protestant but almost twice as many, 56%, become religiously unaffiliated or nones, not the good nuns obviously. In fact, very soon there may not be any religious nuns in America since less than 1% of nuns are under 40 and the average age of a religious sister is 80.
Protestant apologist Javier Perdomo has also done of a deep dive on the Pew study and shows that there isn’t a colossal shift among Protestants in becoming Catholic. Among those raised Protestant only two percent now identify as Catholic whereas among those raised Catholic, 14% of them identify as Protestant. That means there are seven times as many converts to Protestantism than there are to Catholicism between the two groups.
Now some Catholics may soothe themselves by saying smart Protestants become Catholic whereas the larger number of not-so-smart or less pious Catholics become Protestant so this is just an issue of quality over quantity.
That’s a grand claim with little evidence to back it up, but suppose it were true? Why does that matter? A person’s worth doesn’t come from his or her intelligence, it comes from the fact that he or she was made in the image and likeness of God. The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a social club for theology nerds. Consider St. Pauls’ words from his first letter to the Corinthians:
For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; 27 but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption; 31 therefore, as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord.”
Going back to the data from Pew, the Protestants most likely to become Catholic are Lutherans, Anglicans, and Presbyterians, which makes sense because these religions are closer in liturgy, theology and historical development to Catholicism than nondenominational evangelicals. Surprisingly though, among Eastern Orthodox who switch religions, they are more likely to become nonreligious or Protestant than to become Catholic.
In fact, if someone switches from a non-Christian religion to a Christian religion they are much more likely to become Protestant than Catholic. This may be due to a fact I noted in my episode about Wes Huff being on Joe Rogan which follows how evangelistic Protestants focus more on the fundamentals of the Faith and outreach to non-Christians like atheists, Muslims, and Mormons whereas evangelistic Catholics tend to focus on Catholic distinctives and outreach to Protestants.
Look my desire in making this video isn’t to just bum Catholics out. Instead, it’s to curb triumphalism that can just make our witness really obnoxious and lull us into a false sense of security. When you think you’re winning you just don’t try as hard. For example, when Roe v Wade was the law of the land, pro-choice advocates never wanted to engage the issue. But when Roe was overturned, pro-choicers became the underdogs and developed passion to fight for this issue I had never seen before.
So that’s the bad news for Catholics. And to be clear, I’m not concerned about “winning” in the sense that I want to get the most converts, as if evangelism were is some kind of denominational competition. I sincerely believe the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of what God has revealed for the sake of saving people from their sins and to willingly reject Christ’s Church risks a person’s eternal soul. I want everyone to be in full communion with the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church that safeguards divine revelation and communicates the sacraments Christ instituted for our salvation like the Eucharist. I also want to remove as many obstacles to that goal as possible and ignorant cheerleading can be one of those obstacles.
Imagine a team that is losing the big game but the players only talk about that one play earlier in the game where they “owned” the captain of the other team. That might make them feel good, but they’re going to lose if they don’t change their approach because they’ve lost cite of the big picture.
So as Catholics what should we do? I’ll be honest. I don’t have a complete answer. My goal here at the Counsel of Trent is to provide good reasons to believe in Christianity, with a special emphasis on its fulfillment in the Catholic church. I consider myself to be in research and development of arguments more than tactics.
But I will say that Catholics and the Orthodox do have the upper hand when engaging Protestants, especially evangelicals, on the question of who has the fullness of the faith. Recently a video went viral on X showing a evangelicals Stuart and Cliff Knechtle, who you might remember from my Christian avengers rebuttal, discussing the Eucharist and baptism with a Harvard student who is also an Oriental Orthodox deacon.
I’ll link to the video below but I will say the duo did not come off well and their lack of knowledge about Church history really showed, especially when they tried to attack the Church by saying ecumenical councils contradict each other including some council called Vatican III.
So I think there is benefit in Catholics engaging Protestants online and having charitable discussions about the apostolic origins of the faith. But if we keep our focus online we are going to lose just like the sports team that only talks about the one awesome play they had and never looks at the scoreboard.
Even when we do effectively share the faith with someone online, that person still has to go and encounter a real life, brick and mortar parish to be fully received into the Faith, and I think that’s what many Catholics fear the most – the actual parish experience.
For example, when I got married, and I assume it’s like this in many parishes, you need to get an affidavit signed by your parents and witnessed at a parish that says you’ve never been married before. But my parents weren’t Catholic and so no parish would sign their affidavit because they weren’t registered at the parish. But they couldn’t register because they’re not Catholic but rules are rules. I think many people have had similar stories of parishes feeling, not like welcoming homes but Kafka-esque bureaucratic nightmares.
And I think that’s the crux of the problem for Catholics. For many Catholics, the ones who aren’t debating theology on the Internet, the faith is something you get through. It’s something you inherited and it often provides comfort, but it’s just one part of your life, and usually not the most important part. In 2023 The Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI, asked people to agree with the statement, “Religion Is The Most Important Thing in their Life”
The largest group who agreed were white evangelicals at 44%, 23% of Hispanic Catholics agree, up from 14% in 2013, but among White Catholics it’s been the same for a decade, only 9% say religion is the most important thing in their life. That’s less than half of all Americans in general.
The Pew study also showed that of all the Protestant denominations, the one not losing members were the non-denominational Protestants.
There may be different reasons for that, positive and negative. Negative would be that these groups have unlimited latitude to cater to their audiences so they have an easier time attracting people but a much more difficult time maintaining a consistent theology and liturgy.
But the positive side may be this group, especially Evangelicals, just see the faith differently. Most homilies at an average Catholic parish are just about we should try to be better people each week, and it’s good to hear about how to grow in sanctity. But you’ve probably rarely heard a priest say people’s salvation is in danger if they choose to leave or reject the Catholic church or explain why the salvation comes from the Catholic church.
But for many evangelicals, sharing the faith is a matter of spiritual life or death to those they witness to: it’s not just about running up the scoreboard in a Pew survey.
And Catholics should have the same missionary passion, although our real problem isn’t the failure to witness to non-Catholics, it’s the failure to help Catholics stay Catholic.
According to the PRRI report, of all groups, Catholics were the most likely to leave their faith because they just “stopped believing in their religion’s teaching”, followed by rejecting Church teaching on LGBTQ issues. They were also the most likely to leave their religion because of “scandals involving leaders in your former religion”.
I agree with Sammons that there isn’t a simple answer to solve this problem. He writes:
Catholics ignoring the problem is the biggest challenge, but there is another challenge: giving simplistic answers. There is no “silver bullet” that will reverse the decline. Just spreading the TLM (the trad silver bullet) or improving catechesis (the conservative silver bullet) or accepting modern sexual mores (the liberal silver bullet) won’t solve the problem. There is no one answer for how to move forward.
Eric would agree the liberal silver bullet is one that would unalive the Church with evil errors, so obviously it’s wrong, his point is just that each camp in the church likes to propose a simple solution but even good simple solutions like more catechesis won’t be enough.
Whatever the solution is, treating our Catholic faith as a matter of spiritual life and death, in everything we do, from preaching, to teaching, to our interactions with everyone we meet needs to be part of our response to this crisis. And it has to be done in real life, not just online, since online converts need an orthodox, inviting place in the real world if they want to come home to Rome. Keep in mind that one in every 8 people you meet is a former Catholic, one in 8, so a simple invitation to attend mass can go along way.
25 years ago a girl at my high school invited me to mass. It changed my life and, consequently, the lives of countless other people, so it’s always worth a shot. There will be lots of Catholics at Easter next week who haven’t been to church since Christmas, a kind word and invitation to come to divine mercy Sunday can also go along way. The worst a person can do is say no thanks.
And if you’d like to learn more about how to draw people back to the Catholic faith I recommend my friend Brandon Vogt’s book Return: How to Draw Your Child Back to the Church which is meant for parents but is helpful to anyone who wants to encourage a fellow child of God to come home to the Church. And for teaching children about the Church’s toughest moral issues that often precipitate them leaving the Faith, I recommend Made this Way co-authored with my friend Leila Miller.
Thank you all so much and I hope you have a very blessed day.