The official web site of A.H. Lloyd

I’ve been subscribing to First Things for a while, and for the most part, I really enjoy it. It reminds me of what magazines used to be: erudite, interesting, and informative.

Still, every now and then everyone lands a clunker and Kevin DeYoung produced a doozy in his review of Peter Kreeft’s From Calvinist to Catholic. There is something deeply cringe-worthy is trying to rebut a conversion story, and I’m not sure why DeYoung was selected for this particular task (presumably he asked for it).

At any rate, DeYoung trying to imply that an octogenarian left Calvinism because he was misinformed about its doctrines is a bit much. That ship has clearly sailed and citing the Canons of Dort at this late date is unlikely to move the needle.

Similarly, DeYoung trying to argue that his denomination is growing while citing the somewhat questionable 8 to 1 ratio of Catholics leaving vs gaining adult converts reeks of desperation. I’m fully willing to accept that his micro-denomination is flourishing, but Calvinist (or Reformed) churches are in freefall, wracked with division, and their traditional strongholds in Europe have been entirely secularized.

As is usually the case, DeYoung cannot help but disparage Catholics, claiming that the ones choosing to become Calvinists do so because the Church doesn’t teach the Bible enough. This is laugh out loud territory. There are Bible readings for every single day, and if people sleep through it or ignore it, that’s on them.

Indeed, if we are to speak of anecdotal trends, my observation is that Protestants who become Catholic do so very reluctantly, as if compelled to acknowledge a truth that they would rather ignore. When they do so, they typically have positive things to say of their Protestant experience, and are grateful that it set them on the path to a deeper understanding of Christianity.

Catholic apostates, on the other hand, seem to be running away from the Church, express great loathing for it, and seem to choose their new denomination out of spite.

I also can’t help but notice that there is an immense amount of highly-educated Catholic converts without any corresponding collection of apostates. St. John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, and Graham Greene come to mind, but also contemporary luminaries like Scott Hahn and Taylor Marshall – people with deep experience in Protestant theology who nevertheless found it wanting.

Another topic (that I will likely explore in greater depth later) is that Protestantism is really just an “easy” button for salvation. No fasting, not holy days of obligation, no examination of conscience at every Mass, no need for Reconciliation, no need to prepare to receive the Eucharist (it’s just bread and grape juice anyway), no need to reach the Church Fathers, or study the lives of the saints, just an hour a week in a plain room where one can sing and hear inspirational stories.

I lived that life, and I have to admit that every now and then (usually during Lent), I wish I could just ignore fasting, abstaining from meat, extra devotions, etc. and just go through through life thinking that because Jesus loves me, I’m good. No need to sweat my sins, they’re forgiven. Just go to the weekly pep rally and leave it at that.

But I know that’s not true. I was still committing grave sins even as I went to the weekly service, and my heart was very far from God. I was not fully awake to the reality of spiritual warfare, and spectacularly ill-equipped to fight in it.

DeYoung unintentionally highlights this problem with Reformed theology, and his attempt to point out that heresy and disagreements have always dogged the Church, is not the sick burn that he things it is. The Protestant Reformation succeeded in fracturing Christianity not because it was more theologically potent than earlier heresies but because the political/military balance was for the first time favorable to fracturing the Church. The secular rulers seized the Church’s wealth and property and established themselves as the heads of state churches under their sole direction.

All of these establishments have failed, none more spectacularly than Calvinism, which is why DeYoung’s review ultimately fails in attempting to refute Kreeft’s arguments.