Why Do Protestants Convert? should be read by many, even though it may please few. Coauthored by Brad Littlejohn (a colleague of mine at the Ethics and Public Policy Center) and Chris Castaldo, this slim volume regards conversion holistically, as a process involving the whole person, rather than only a matter of dueling theological propositions.
Consequently, the authors’ answers to the question in their title may irate everyone. Protestants may feel excessively criticized while Catholic readers may complain that the authors’ sociological and psychological focus avoids serious engagement with Catholic theology. But there was no need for another book arguing over theology. Conversions rarely begin from theological contemplation, but from a sense that Protestantism lacks something Catholicism has. Thus, explaining why Protestants, and especially so many of their “best and brightest,” convert requires examining the failures of modern American Protestantism.
The basic problem is, as Carl Trueman observed in a brief forward, that “the idiom of the rock concert with added TED talk is scarcely adequate to convey the holiness of God, the beauty of worship and the seriousness of the Christian faith.” Generations of evangelical leaders have embraced the idea that casual, entertaining, “seeker-sensitive” church services are the key to a growing congregation. Some succeed, but they leave a lot behind in the attempt. This is why it often seems that nearly every intellectually or aesthetically sensitive American evangelical will at some point feel the allure of Catholicism — the road to Rome often begins with a sense
