Everything Old is New Again
If you are old enough, as I am, to remember the Apollo space program then watching Artemis II circle the moon yesterday came with an odd sense of déjà vu. Sure the lunar orbit was larger, hence the distance from Earth was farther, sure this spacecraft is far more sophisticated than Apollo was, but still it was eerily familiar. But that is not what I am referring to in the title. Rather I came across a startling statistic yesterday, which combined with some anecdotal data I have received in the last couple of weeks is stunning.
The U.S. Catholic Church experienced an estimated 38% increase in adult converts over the Easter weekend, driven by young men in their 20s, according to an analysis of data from 140 of the nation’s 175 dioceses.
Meanwhile, I know personally of one Presbyterian congregation [PC(USA)] that is in deep trouble and one that has announced it is closing the doors. 2025 was the year that the PC(USA) was expected to drop below a million members, confirming stats have yet to be compiled. Across the board, the traditional mainline Protestant denominations are in decline.
What’s going on here?
The Washington Times piece revealing the Catholic surge looks at a variety of reasons for the growth, mostly focusing on political hot buttons – traditional marriage, the role of women, so forth and so on. I think that is true as far as it goes, but I think something deeper is reflected here. The host’s interview with Bishop Robert Barron last week was most revealing. Starting around 15:46 they discuss apologetics and the Bishop talks about how the church of his youth was more just another social justice charity rather than something solid upon which one could build a coherent and firm worldview. That discussion concludes after a bit with a break and then around 19:00 they come back from break and the host asks what the “Good News” of Easter is. The Bishop responds with a straightforward , very evangelical sounding, message of personal salvation.
My experience as a Presbyterian is very opposite. The church of my youth was evangelical in outlook and the message was one of personal salvation and the results it produces first in the self and then in the world. But nowadays the Presbyterian church is all about social justice with the heart of the gospel peaking through only occasionally if at all.
If the stats and anecdotes are to be believed, people are moving from social justice (not that it is a bad thing) towards personal salvation. Christ’s parable of the speck and the log comes to mind. We can’t really fix the world until we have cleaned up our own mess. It would seem young people understand this instinctively, even if we old folks have lost focus on it. Hence the young people are gravitating to the message of personal salvation.
To analyze these trends in political terms is to miss the point. The political differences are secondary to the root issue, which is the gospel – We are sinners, Christ died for our sins and He resurrected to defeat death, the consequence of our sin. Everything flows from that, everything.
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