The mutual anathematization between Protestants and Catholics traces its roots to the seismic rupture of the 16th-century Reformation, a period when theological dissent collided with entrenched ecclesiastical authority, igniting a schism that reverberated across centuries. At its heart lay a profound disagreement over the nature of salvation and the Church’s role in mediating it.
THE ANTICHRIST RELIGION
Catholics, anchored in the Council of Trent (1545–1563), upheld the necessity of sacramental grace and Tradition alongside Scripture, declaring that justification—a right standing before God—arose from faith cooperating with works, administered through the Church’s priesthood. Protestants, galvanized by figures like Martin Luther and John Calvin, countered with sola fide (faith alone) and sola scriptura (Scripture alone), rejecting what they saw as Rome’s accretions of human invention—indulgences, purgatory, and papal supremacy chief among them.
Trent’s anathemas, formal curses against those denying its doctrines, branded Protestant teachings heretical; in turn, early Reformers like Luther denounced the Pope as the Antichrist, casting Catholicism as a corruption of apostolic purity. This theological chasm birthed a reciprocal condemnation, each side viewing the other as a betrayal of the gospel.
From the perspective of Protestants, Catholics are captives to a tyrannical institution, their rituals—veneration of saints, the Mass as a sacrifice—smacking of superstition and bondage. Its doctrines, unbiblical and inventive. It’s claims of historicity, farcical. Its worship, blasphemous.
The division between us has softened with time, though its echoes linger. The 20th century’s ecumenical stirrings—Vatican II’s outreach (1962–1965) and dialogues like the Joint Declaration on Justification (1999) between Lutherans and Catholics—signal a retreat from outright condemnation, seeking “common ground” in Christ’s redemptive work. “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” was an attempt from the Protestant side to make peace with Belial, just as Vatican II was the Papist’s attempt to make peace with us. But theologically, there is no peace, and never can be.
MASS CONVERSIONS TO ROME AND EASTERN ORTHODOXY
Protestants who don’t understand that Rome is winning in the race to convert those awakened in the Populist Social Revival simply aren’t paying attention.
In recent years, a wave of celebrity conversions to Roman Catholicism has captured public attention, illuminating a curious intersection of fame, faith, and cultural currents. Figures such as Shia LaBeouf, Candace Owens, Russell Brand, and Tammy Peterson—wife of psychologist Jordan Peterson—have publicly embraced the Church, each bringing a distinct narrative to their spiritual journey. LaBeouf, confirmed in 2023 by Bishop Robert Barron after portraying Padre Pio in a film, frames his conversion as a redemptive arc following personal turmoil, including legal troubles and allegations of abuse. Owens, baptized in 2024, has leveraged her platform as a conservative commentator to champion a traditionalist Catholicism, often aligning it with her political rhetoric. Brand, baptized in 2024 after a history of eclectic spirituality and amid sexual assault allegations, has partnered with Catholic prayer app Hallow, while Peterson’s 2023 conversion followed a harrowing illness, deepening her devotion through the Rosary. These high-profile entrances into the Church reflect a broader trend of notable personalities seeking solace or structure in Catholicism’s ancient embrace.
The motivations behind these conversions are as varied as the individuals themselves, yet they converge on a hunger for meaning amid personal or societal chaos—an echo, perhaps, of Augustine’s restless heart finding rest in God. For some, like LaBeouf and Brand, the shift follows public scandals, raising questions of sincerity versus strategic rebranding, as critics note the timing of their transformations aligns with efforts to rehabilitate tarnished images. Others, like Owens, appear drawn to Catholicism’s intellectual and moral rigor, finding in its traditions a bulwark against modernity’s flux—through her embrace of slogans like “Christ is King.” Peterson’s journey, by contrast, seems deeply personal, rooted in suffering and a quiet discovery of prayer’s power. This diversity underscores a paradox: while the Church offers a universal call, its appeal to celebrities often amplifies their existing personas, whether as penitents or seekers, projecting their conversions onto a global stage where faith becomes both spectacle and testimony.
The impact of these conversions ripples beyond the individuals, stirring both enthusiasm and unease among Catholics and observers. On one hand, they signal a countercultural allure—Catholicism’s sacramental depth and historical gravitas drawing those who, in theory, “have it all” yet find it wanting. In 2024, Vanity Fair called this a “celebrity-conversion industrial complex.”
Oddly enough, many of these conservative converts will openly denounce Pope Francis because they recognize he’s a Communist, hyper-environmentalist, Cultural Marxist, and Universalist. This is why I use the term, “Roaming Catholics.” They’re not yet tied into the cult, but are at this point only loosely associated with its trappings.
But, it’s not just celebrities, and it’s not just Rome. The Roman Catholic sister-cult, Eastern Orthodoxy, is also experiencing mass conversions.
Eastern Orthodoxy, long perceived as a tradition tethered to its historic strongholds in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Russia, is experiencing a notable resurgence in unexpected corners, particularly in the United States. While global estimates of Orthodox Christians hover around 220 to 260 million—down from 7.1% of the world’s population in 1910 to roughly 4% today, per the 2015 Yearbook of International Religious Demography—the faith’s growth in the West defies this broader narrative of proportional decline.
In America, where Orthodoxy historically leaned on immigrant communities from Greece, Russia, and the Middle East, a new wave of converts is swelling its ranks. Parishes report surges in attendance and baptisms, with some, like those in the Appalachian Bible Belt, growing by 15% or more annually since 2020, according to anecdotal accounts and analyses like those from Alexei Krindatch’s 2020 U.S. Census of Orthodox Christian Churches. This vitality contrasts sharply with the stagnation or decline of many mainline Protestant denominations, suggesting a shift in the religious landscape where Orthodoxy’s ancient roots resonate anew.
This growth is fueled by a confluence of factors, chief among them a hunger for liturgical depth and theological stability amid modernity’s flux. Converts—often disillusioned evangelicals—cite the Church’s rich sacramental life, and its resistance to contemporary cultural trends as draws. The post-2020 period, marked by pandemic introspection and societal upheaval, appears to have accelerated this trend, with online platforms amplifying Orthodoxy’s visibility through apologists on YouTube and podcasts.
Krindatch’s data notes that 13% of parishes have seen a “surge in vitality” since Covid, measured by attendance, giving, and engagement. In regions like Tennessee and Georgia, parishes report dozens of catechumens annually—newcomers ranging from young families to former Protestants seeking a faith unswayed by political or progressive tides. Some media reports that the mass conversions to Orthodoxy are so great, it’s caused a bottleneck in the Chrismation process (by which people convert). Simply put, the Eastern Orthodox church has so many new converts they can’t handle them all.
NEW BELIEVERS DETEST SEEKER FRIENDLY EVANGELICALISM
Americans are turning away from the shallow waters of seeker-friendly religion—characterized by its upbeat worship, motivational sermons, and minimal demands—and toward traditions that offer depth, rigor, and an unapologetic encounter with the transcendent. The megachurch model, once ascendant with its polished productions and broad appeal, is faltering.
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Attendance at such venues has plateaued or declined since the early 2000s, with a 2023 Barna report noting that only 21% of Gen Z attends church weekly, down from 34% for Boomers at the same age. In its place, smaller, more rooted expressions like Eastern Orthodoxy and traditional Catholicism, are gaining traction, particularly among converts. These traditions, with their ancient liturgies, robust theologies, and demands for discipline, resonate with a hunger for meaning that transcends the therapeutic platitudes of “your best life now.” The post-pandemic soul-searching, coupled with a broader disillusionment with consumer culture, has amplified this craving for a faith that wrestles with sin, suffering, and salvation rather than sidestepping them for comfort.
A significant driver of this shift is the rejection of progressive politics and doctrinal compromise, which many new believers perceive as diluting the potency of religious conviction. Seeker-friendly churches, often aligned with cultural trends to remain relevant, have embraced inclusivity and social justice rhetoric—sometimes at the expense of traditional teachings on morality or scripture’s authority.
This turn-off is particularly acute among new believers who, emerging from a fragmented, post-Christian society, seek a faith that stands apart rather than conforms. Progressive politics, with its emphasis on fluidity and negotiation, clashes with their desire for a religion that offers absolutes—sin and redemption, heaven and hell—not a vague affirmation of personal journeys. As shallow, seeker-friendly models wane, this hunger for depth signals a reorientation: Americans are not abandoning faith wholesale but seeking it in forms that demand allegiance, not just attendance, and that promise roots deep enough to weather a storm-tossed age.
Most of these new “converts” to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy haven’t gone through Catholic Confirmation or Eastern Orthodox Chrismation. Some of them don’t belong to a specific parish. Rather, they are what I call “Roaming Catholics,” some of whom wound up there just because they assumed all evangelicals are like Joel Osteen or Rick Warren, and they want nothing to do with either.
HOW TO STOP THE HEMORHAGING
When new converts to Catholicism, or those who are only “Catholic curious,” talk about their so-called spiritual journey, they inevitably talk about the triteness and irreverence of evangelicalism that is the reason for it. They simply can’t stomach, any longer, watching their entertainment-driven church shoot midgets out of canons or put stripper poles in the sanctuary, and to do it in the name of relevance.
Amazingly, it’s the lost-but-searching among us who admit that they believe the Bible is relevant to them, no matter how old or out-of-date religion seems to be. That’s why they’re in church to begin with…they believe what the Bible says is always relevant.
For thirty years, evangelical churches have sought to emulate secularism in the culture. Actually trying to de-religion their religion, they’ve spent countless fortunes trying to make their worship “experience” anything but church-like. They’ve diligently trained themselves to make their sermons less sermon-like (they call them “talks” now). They have engrained into their members a rigid casualness, almost deriding any sense of formality in their dress, attire, or behavior. They’ve turned down the lights, cranked up the speakers and turned on the smoke machines in order to emulate secular music concerts. This hasn’t been a slow creep of secularism sneaking into the church; this has been the intentional top-down rebranding of what church is supposed to be, by those leading it.
But it turns out, the world has had enough of secularism and now they’re searching for the religious. They’re searching for the serious. They’re searching for the sanctified. They’re searching for an hour on Sundays in which they can be around respectful people, dressed respectfully, singing songs magnifying God’s holiness rather than his relatability, and wanting to hear an hour of doctrine rather than twenty minutes of sports analogies, jokes, and movie references. And unfortunately, they’re not finding it in evangelical churches.
Oh, sure. Some serious Protestant or evangelical churches indeed exist. But let’s be honest, if you were a worldling feeling the tug of the Holy Ghost, and you didn’t know what to look for, what are the odds you’d stumble into one of these serious-spirited evangelical churches on Sunday morning? The odds aren’t great.
This drives evangelicals who are indeed serious, quite crazy, because we can’t fathom why anyone who is genuinely searching after authentic religion would find themselves in a Catholic church full of superstition, silliness, and absurd, unbiblical practices and beliefs. And we sure can’t fathom why someone fleeing progressive evangelicalism would go to the church whose head is a Universalist, fuzzy Communist, and depending upon the crowd he’s speaking to, pro-gay apologist. Surely the Pope being Francis, undermines any claims the Catholic church may make about traditional conservative values.
But that’s the thing. A worldling trying to navigate their calling, who’s yet to be catechized or taught, doesn’t know any of those things. They just know you won’t find a female priest, or a Catholic float in the Pride parade. They know they won’t find a midget cannon at the local Catholic Cathedral. And so to them, that’s the traditional values and serious-minded religion they’re searching for.
And now comes the hard part, for Protestant Evangelicals who want to get in on the Populist Social Revival, and gain some new members or converts rather than just watching them all flock to Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Unfortunately, the solution isn’t a new advertising campaign. It’s not a new sermon series. It’s not a list of cool, relevant thing your “life groups” can focus on. If Protestant Evangelicals want to capitalize on the Populist Social Revival, they have to do something they’ve not done for a long time; teach doctrine and explain why their Confession of Faith is superior to that of any other tradition.
Crazy, right? Churches need to send the message (1) this is what we believe (2) we take these beliefs very seriously and (3) what we believe is biblically superior compared to what other churches or traditions teach.
Now, I’m not suggesting these things should be done as part of an intentional effort to reap converts headed toward Catholicism. I’m suggesting these things should be done as a part of the Biblical job duties given to Christian churches. It’s what we should have been doing all along.
Sure, we should fire the youth pastors. We should paint the walls white, instead of black, and turn the lights up. We should throw out the ‘preaching stool’ and bring back the pulpit. And, we should excise every last, remaining remnant of the Church Growth Movement methodology we’ve adopted the last 30 years. But most of all, we should abandon these bad ideas because we’ve tried them for decades and found that none of these church growth novelties and strategies led to any genuine fruit.
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