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July 6 - August 1, 2025
Classic, orthodox Protestantism has the resources to rise to these challenges while not abandoning its historic commitment to the centrality of the Bible and preached Word. And this book, in highlighting why Rome is so attractive, also points to why acknowledging this should challenge us to be better Protestants, not to swim the Tiber.
There may well be resources in the Protestant intellectual tradition that equal Rome's offering—certainly that is our contention at The Davenant Institute. But until we teach them effectively to our pastors, parishioners, and children, we should hardly be surprised when they go in search of greener pastures.
The key psychological needs driving conversions can be effectively summarized under three headings: Authority Hunger, Holiness Deficit Disorder, and the Inner Ring.
The authority of the Roman Catholic Church, the Reformers argued, is a kind of false simulacrum of authority, a shortcut rather than the real thing, since it nullifies freedom rather than sustaining it; rather than guiding the soul in pursuit of the good, the hierarchy claims to itself possess the good, so that the laity can simply rest in obedience—learning doctrine if they are so inclined, but trusting implicitly if they prefer.
Protestants were at the forefront of European intellectual life and politics throughout the early modern period, and even at Catholic courts, like that of France, were filled with leading advisors and thinkers disproportionately likely to be Protestant. Objectively speaking, Protestantism can place its contributions to theology, philosophy, science, law, politics, and art alongside those of any other religious tradition and hold its head high. But in America today, being a Protestant just feels so plebeian, so common, so boring, and those who want to accomplish something meaningful in the
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The authority of Rome is often among the main reasons converts leave Protestantism. Even for those who never visit Vatican City—whose experience is limited to the ordinary life of a local parish—the quest for magisterial certainty and substance is cited as a chief reason for Rome-ward journeys. However, as we suggested in our first chapter, it is never simply an attractive pull without a corresponding push.
As our Davenant colleague Onsi Kamel explains in a 2019 article for First Things , "Catholicism Made Me Protestant," the infighting among traditionalist, conservative, and liberal Catholics highlights the sizable dent in Rome's claim to speak with the living voice of divine authority, revealing that interpretive certainty cannot be realized in the sola magisterium position of Rome any more than in one's private interpretation.
The proper path, rather, is an acknowledgement that in Scripture alone we have the inspired Word of God commanding our allegiance above all earthly powers and authorities (including that of Popes and councils), a word that is rightly understood in the community of faith, the church, with her biblically chastened theological judgments (or "catholic tradition"), retrieved and renewed from centuries of church history.
Collins and Walls examine a range of distinctively Roman Catholic doctrines (e.g., sacraments, priesthood, papacy, Mariology, and justification), and conclude that such teaching is more indebted to an inbred development of Roman tradition than a genuinely catholic Christianity.
For Protestants, the aesthetic dimensions of Christian faith are secondary to the Word. For Catholics, on the other hand, the sacred is primarily connected to the material—to oil, water, shrines, relics, chapels—a sensory experience that involves ritual.
Therefore the first principle according to which all true theological truths are determined should be this: 'The Lord has spoken' [DOMINUS DIXIT]. This clarity is not to be looked for from the light of human understanding or our reason, but from the light of faith which should be most persuasive to us, and which is contained in the sacred writings [of Scripture].
When the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century split from or were excommunicated by Rome, they rejected Roman ecclesiology. Over against Rome, Protestants emphasized the church's identity and calling as a communion of saints, the congregation of the faithful who receive God's redemptive word, variously administered and confessed in preaching, instruction, confession, sacrament, and life. Concerning the relationship of divine authority to this identity, Michael Horton helpfully reminds us, "The church is always on the receiving end in its relationship to Christ; it is never the
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Behind many of the defections from Christian orthodoxy or evangelical Protestantism is a basic psychological deficit: friendlessness and fatherlessness. Most of us lack the dense web of relationships that sustained our Christian forebears, whether the peers with whom to share our triumphs and our doubts, or the fathers and mothers in the faith to anchor us and mentor us in the midst of confusion. If we are to respond with truth to this crisis, we must also respond with love. The emotional needs of people living in a world adrift are no less important than their intellectual needs.
The Reformers taught that even though one's best works are tainted with sin and fall short of God's glory, they nevertheless matter to God and give him pleasure. Therefore good works are to be pursued with the utmost earnestness.
