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Andrew Voigt’s recent article at The Gospel Coalition, Roman Catholic Apologetics Is Surging Online. Intended Audience? Protestants, reads like a Protestant reconnaissance report, alarmed at the rising tide of Catholics who (gasp!) actually defend their faith online. According to Voigt, Catholic apologetics is growing, influential, and—perhaps worst of all—persuasive. But instead of wrestling with why so many well-educated, Bible-loving Protestants are finding their way to Rome, Voigt attempts to wave it all away with an argument that boils down to: “Catholics are really good at YouTube.”
It’s cute, really.
“Why Are So Many Protestant Thinkers Becoming Catholic?”
Voigt starts by listing the growing ranks of Protestant converts to Catholicism—Cameron Bertuzzi, Keith Nester, Ulf Ekman, Francis Beckwith, and many others. He then poses the right question: Why are these people converting? But instead of considering serious theological reasons, he lands on two theories:
- Catholics are obsessed with growing their institution.
- Protestants are too busy fighting secularism to focus on their own doctrinal distinctives.
This is where I nearly spit out my coffee.
The first point is a tired Protestant caricature: Catholics don’t care about Jesus—they just want to build their numbers! But let’s be real. If there’s any Christian tradition historically obsessed with planting new churches, marketing campaigns, and launching endless waves of evangelistic programs to “get people saved,” it’s evangelical Protestantism. Meanwhile, Catholics are over here doing what we’ve been doing for 2,000 years: teaching, baptizing, catechizing, and, yes, calling all Christians to unity in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
It’s not about winning an institutional numbers game—it’s about answering Christ’s prayer that “they may all be one” (John 17:21).
As for his second claim—Protestants being too distracted with secularism to focus on Catholicism—one has to wonder if Voigt has ever sat through an expository sermon series titled Why the Catholic Church Is Wrong, because I sure did in my Protestant years. Protestant pastors devote entire ministries to “saving Catholics from Rome,” and yet Voigt thinks Protestantism is too busy fighting postmodernism to notice Catholics?
“Protestant Perspectives Aren’t Presented Accurately on YouTube”
One of Voigt’s main complaints is that Catholic apologetics dominates YouTube, while Protestant perspectives aren’t sufficiently or accurately represented. This is fascinating, given that there are millions of Protestant videos online criticizing Catholicism. Mike Winger, James White, John MacArthur, and countless others flood the internet daily with content telling Catholics they aren’t real Christians, that the Church is the “Whore of Babylon,” and that we’re idol-worshipping, grace-denying, Mary-obsessed pagans.
If anything, Catholic apologists have had to step up because of the sheer volume of misinformation spewed about Catholicism. If Protestant perspectives aren’t being presented clearly, maybe it’s because there are too many competing versions of Protestantism to present one coherent message. Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans, Pentecostals—who gets to define the “Protestant perspective” on any given doctrine? There is no Protestant Magisterium to settle these disputes, which is why Protestantism keeps fracturing into more and more denominations.
“Catholics Target Protestants for Conversion”
Voigt is particularly troubled by the fact that Catholic apologists engage Protestants. He suggests that, unlike Protestants, who focus on winning secular people to Christ, Catholics are busy trying to “harvest” Protestants.
Now, I was a Protestant pastor for 20 years, and let me tell you—there is an entire industry dedicated to converting Catholics. I used to be part of it. Missions organizations, seminaries, and evangelical churches have spent decades sending missionaries to “reach Catholics for Jesus” under the assumption that Catholics aren’t truly saved. I even helped sponsor mission trips where young evangelicals were trained to target Catholics in Latin America, believing they needed to be “set free from Rome.”
Catholics, on the other hand, don’t claim Protestants aren’t Christians—we simply insist they are missing the fullness of Christian truth. When we talk about evangelizing Protestants, we aren’t saying, “Let’s save these poor lost souls from eternal damnation.” We’re saying, “Hey, brother, we love your love for Jesus—but you’ve inherited a truncated version of Christianity, and you deserve the full richness of what Christ left us in His Church.”
“Catholics Soften Their Doctrine to Lure Protestants In”
Another charge Voigt makes is that Catholic apologists “soften” Catholic teachings to make them sound more Protestant-friendly. This, frankly, is nonsense.
Catholic converts like myself, Keith Nester, and Scott Hahn don’t downplay doctrines—we explain them in ways Protestants can understand. Many ex-Protestants convert because, for the first time, they hear the real Catholic teaching rather than the warped, strawman versions they were fed in their Protestant churches. The doctrines of purgatory, transubstantiation, Marian devotion, and papal authority are not “accretions” or “additions” to the faith—they are biblical and historical truths that date back to the early Church. The only thing Catholic apologists are “softening” is the confusion created by centuries of Protestant misunderstanding.
Voigt’s Protestant Survival Guide
Voigt ends his piece by offering Protestants a battle plan for surviving the Catholic apologetics onslaught. His advice?
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Revisit Reformed Roots. Great idea! Many Protestant converts to Catholicism do revisit their Reformed roots—and that’s exactly what leads them to Rome. The deeper they dig into Church history, the more they realize that the early Church didn’t look anything like the Reformation.
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Equip the Laity. Again, great advice. But if Protestants read the early Church Fathers in context, they will see that those Fathers sound a lot more Catholic than Protestant.
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Be Rooted in Scripture. Yes, please! But let’s remember that Scripture itself never teaches sola Scriptura. The very idea of a “Bible alone” Christianity is nowhere found in the Bible. The apostles didn’t hand out New Testaments—they established a Church with authority to teach, interpret, and guard the faith.
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Reform Protestantism. This is the real kicker. Protestantism has been “reforming” itself for 500 years, splintering into thousands of competing groups. How many more times must it split before Protestants admit that “reforming Protestantism” is just another word for “creating a new denomination”?
Conclusion: Catholicism Isn’t Winning Because of YouTube—It’s Winning Because It’s True
The real reason Catholic apologetics is surging isn’t because of social media strategies, slick videos, or “institutional expansion.” It’s because Protestantism’s core problems—doctrinal fragmentation, historical inconsistency, and biblical incoherence—are driving serious Christians out of Protestantism and into the Catholic Church.
Voigt’s article is right about one thing: conversions to Catholicism are increasing. But instead of waving it away with weak explanations, Protestants should be asking why. Because when you start pulling at the thread of Protestantism’s inconsistencies, you might just find yourself crossing the Tiber, too.