Hat tip to my friend Russ Rentler for finding this article documenting the increasing trend at an Evangelical college (and in the U.S. in general) in the number of Evangelical Protestants entering full communion with the Catholic Church:
Indeed The King’s College is a microcosm of the larger community of young believers whose frustration with the lack of authority, structure, and intellectualism in many evangelical churches is leading them in great numbers to the Roman Catholic Church. This trend of “Crossing the Tiber” a phrase that also served as the title of Stephen K. Ray’s 1997 book on the phenomenon, has been growing steadily for decades, but with the help of a solid foundation of literature, exemplar converts from previous generations, burgeoning traditional and new media outlets, and the coming of age of Millennial evangelicals, it is seeing its pace quicken dramatically.
via Evangelicals ‘Crossing the Tiber’ to Catholicism | Atheologies | Religion Dispatches.
I would highlight the “new media” factor in the above paragraph in particular. Now it is possible for any questioning Protestant to go online and find out exactly what the Catholic Church teaches, what the Church Fathers and earliest Christians believed, and what the best arguments are on each side.
That’s why a site like CalledToCommunion.com is so helpful. These converts from all walks of Protestantism (but especially the Reformed strain) are systematically building up the case for the Catholic Church. They aren’t doing it by setting up straw-men to knock down, either. Instead, they are engaging the strongest arguments for Protestantism and the best proponents of those arguments. Protestants are reading those articles and the comments and realizing that even Protestantism’s best arguments are soundly rebutted.
Are there any numbers on this? Any reason to believe it’s more than just the usual denominational churn (RCs becoming Prots, Prots becoming RCs, either one becoming Orthodox, etc.)?
I think it is all anecdotal, so no numbers. In some sense, the absolute numbers are not important but rather the trend. “Denominational churn” is no doubt what it looks like from one perspective, but I see another, more directed movement toward, if nothing else, more ancient and, if I may, more historically and theologically credible institutions (yes, you can count the Anglicans in with that, though the Anglican Communion is doing its best to make its traditional (more orthodox) members unwelcome).
Certainly the mainline Protestant denominations are losing members rapidly and have been for decades–nothing seems on the horizon to stem that exodus, but Evangelicals are becoming disenchanted with the anti-intellectual, anti-historical, and anti-traditional foundations of their faith and so are seeking something deeper.
What do you think?
I think you’re right that one can sort of ‘sense’ a trend towards orthodoxy and, in part, the mainline protestant denominations are to be thanked for putting the bankruptcy of liberal and liberation theology on such a vivid display for us all. Also, the turnover rate at mega-churches is so high, and people go in search of form after such a formless experience, which explains the increasing attractiveness of PCA churches and more orthodox Anglican parishes. I was hoping someone had managed to do some kind of study to back all this up, and that you might know about it. Seems like the sort of thing Rodney Stark or Laurence Iannaccone might do. No doubt the reforms of Vatican II are also bearing fruit in making Roman Catholicism more vibrant and attractive to us Protestants (lay movements, emphasis on personal Bible ownership and reading, Mass in the vernacular, etc), so it seems reasonable that there would be a trend.