- Feb 5, 2002
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Why do Protestants convert to Catholicism? If you’ve watched even a few episodes of Marcus Grodi’s “Journey Home” on EWTN, or read conversion stories from the likes of Scott Hahn, Francis Beckwith, Thomas Howard, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, or Paul Thigpen (among many others), you’ll know the answer is: for lots of reasons. Prominent Protestant thinkers Brad Littlejohn and Chris Castaldo distill all of them down to three in their new, 100-page book Why Do Protestants Convert?
The results, as one might expect given the complexity of the subject matter, are curious.
At one level, I’m not certain that I understand the purpose of the book. In the foreword, eminent Presbyterian scholar Carl Trueman says the short volume explores the phenomenon of Protestant-to-Catholic conversion “and offers thoughtful answers to anyone perplexed by the attractions of Rome to a generation of Protestant intellectuals.” So is this—with a chapter titled “The Sociology of Conversion”—supposed to be a dispassionate sociological study, perhaps similar to Stephen Bullivant’s illuminating book Nonverts? Not exactly. The authors are, after all, avowed Protestants who want to deter Protestants from converting.
The first chapter, alternatively, discusses the “psychology of conversion,” also suggesting a neutral and scientific approach to conversion, the authors emphasizing: “Our point is not to discredit conversion narratives as at bottom irrational, or to dismissively ‘psychologize’ any individual’s conversion to Rome.” Yet in the Afterword, Littlejohn writes:
Continued below.
www.catholicworldreport.com
The results, as one might expect given the complexity of the subject matter, are curious.
At one level, I’m not certain that I understand the purpose of the book. In the foreword, eminent Presbyterian scholar Carl Trueman says the short volume explores the phenomenon of Protestant-to-Catholic conversion “and offers thoughtful answers to anyone perplexed by the attractions of Rome to a generation of Protestant intellectuals.” So is this—with a chapter titled “The Sociology of Conversion”—supposed to be a dispassionate sociological study, perhaps similar to Stephen Bullivant’s illuminating book Nonverts? Not exactly. The authors are, after all, avowed Protestants who want to deter Protestants from converting.
The first chapter, alternatively, discusses the “psychology of conversion,” also suggesting a neutral and scientific approach to conversion, the authors emphasizing: “Our point is not to discredit conversion narratives as at bottom irrational, or to dismissively ‘psychologize’ any individual’s conversion to Rome.” Yet in the Afterword, Littlejohn writes:
Continued below.
New book fails to explain why Protestants convert to Catholicism
www.catholicworldreport.com
