The hidden exodus: Catholics becoming Protestants

Any other institution that lost one-third of its members would want to know why.....

We all have heard stories about why people leave. Parents share stories about their children. Academics talk about their students. Everyone has a friend who has left.

While personal experience can be helpful, social science research forces us to look beyond our circle of acquaintances to see what is going on in the whole church.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life has put hard numbers on the anecdotal evidence: One out of every 10 Americans is an ex-Catholic. If they were a separate denomination, they would be the third-largest denomination in the United States, after Catholics and Baptists. One of three people who were raised Catholic no longer identifies as Catholic.

Any other institution that lost one-third of its members would want to know why. But the U.S. bishops have never devoted any time at their national meetings to discussing the exodus. Nor have they spent a dime trying to find out why it is happening.

Thankfully, although the U.S. bishops have not supported research on people who have left the church, the Pew Center has.

Pew’s data shows that those leaving the church are not homogenous. They can be divided into two major groups: those who become unaffiliated and those who become Protestant. Almost half of those leaving the church become unaffiliated and almost half become Protestant. Only about 10 percent of ex-Catholics join non-Christian religions. This article will focus on Catholics who have become Protestant. I am not saying that those who become unaffiliated are not important; I am leaving that discussion to another time.

Why do people leave the Catholic church to become Protestant? Liberal Catholics will tell you that Catholics are leaving because they disagree with the church’s teaching on birth control, women priests, divorce, the bishops’ interference in American politics, etc. Conservatives blame Vatican II, liberal priests and nuns, a permissive culture and the church’s social justice agenda.

One of the reasons there is such disagreement is that we tend to think that everyone leaves for the same reason our friends, relatives and acquaintances have left. We fail to recognize that different people leave for different reasons. People who leave to join Protestant churches do so for different reasons than those who become unaffiliated. People who become evangelicals are different from Catholics who become members of mainline churches.

The principal reasons given by people who leave the church to become Protestant are that their “spiritual needs were not being met” in the Catholic church (71 percent) and they “found a religion they like more” (70 percent). Eighty-one percent of respondents say they joined their new church because they enjoy the religious service and style of worship of their new faith.

In other words, the Catholic church has failed to deliver what people consider fundamental products of religion: spiritual sustenance and a good worship service. And before conservatives blame the new liturgy, only 11 percent of those leaving complained that Catholicism had drifted too far from traditional practices such as the Latin Mass.

Dissatisfaction with how the church deals with spiritual needs and worship services dwarfs any disagreements over specific doctrines. While half of those who became Protestants say they left because they stopped believing in Catholic teaching, specific questions get much lower responses. Only 23 percent said they left because of the church’s teaching on abortion and homosexuality; only 23 percent because of the church’s teaching on divorce; only 21 percent because of the rule that priests cannot marry; only 16 percent because of the church’s teaching on birth control; only 16 percent because of the way the church treats women; only 11 percent because they were unhappy with the teachings on poverty, war and the death penalty.

The data shows that disagreement over specific doctrines is not the main reason Catholics become Protestants. We also have lots of survey data showing that many Catholics who stay disagree with specific church teachings. Despite what theologians and bishops think, doctrine is not that important either to those who become Protestant or to those who stay Catholic.

People are not becoming Protestants because they disagree with specific Catholic teachings; people are leaving because the church does not meet their spiritual needs and they find Protestant worship service better.

Nor are the people becoming Protestants lazy or lax Christians. In fact, they attend worship services at a higher rate than those who remain Catholic. While 42 percent of Catholics who stay attend services weekly, 63 percent of Catholics who become Protestants go to church every week. That is a 21 percentage-point difference.

Catholics who became Protestant also claim to have a stronger faith now than when they were children or teenagers. Seventy-one percent say their faith is “very strong,” while only 35 percent and 22 percent reported that their faith was very strong when they were children and teenagers, respectively. On the other hand, only 46 percent of those who are still Catholic report their faith as “very strong” today as an adult.

Thus, both as believers and as worshipers, Catholics who become Protestants are statistically better Christians than those who stay Catholic. We are losing the best, not the worst.

Some of the common explanations of why people leave do not pan out in the data. For example, only 21 percent of those becoming Protestant mention the sex abuse scandal as a reason for leaving. Only 3 percent say they left because they became separated or divorced.

If you believed liberals, most Catholics who leave the church would be joining mainline churches, like the Episcopal church. In fact, almost two-thirds of former Catholics who join a Protestant church join an evangelical church. Catholics who become evangelicals and Catholics who join mainline churches are two very distinct groups. We need to take a closer look at why each leaves the church.

Fifty-four percent of both groups say that they just gradually drifted away from Catholicism. Both groups also had almost equal numbers (82 percent evangelicals, 80 percent mainline) saying they joined their new church because they enjoyed the worship service. But compared to those who became mainline Protestants, a higher percentage of those becoming evangelicals said they left because their spiritual needs were not being met (78 percent versus 57 percent) and that they had stopped believing in Catholic teaching (62 percent versus 20 percent). They also cited the church’s teaching on the Bible (55 percent versus 16 percent) more frequently as a reason for leaving. Forty-six percent of these new evangelicals felt the Catholic church did not view the Bible literally enough. Thus, for those leaving to become evangelicals, spiritual sustenance, worship services and the Bible were key. Only 11 percent were unhappy with the church’s teachings on poverty, war, and the death penalty Ñ the same percentage as said they were unhappy with the church’s treatment of women. Contrary to what conservatives say, ex-Catholics are not flocking to the evangelicals because they think the Catholic church is politically too liberal. They are leaving to get spiritual nourishment from worship services and the Bible.

Looking at the responses of those who join mainline churches also provides some surprising results. For example, few (20 percent) say they left because they stopped believing in Catholic teachings. However, when specific issues were mentioned in the questionnaire, more of those joining mainline churches agreed that these issues influenced their decision to leave the Catholic church. Thirty-one percent cited unhappiness with the church’s teaching on abortion and homosexuality, women, and divorce and remarriage, and 26 percent mentioned birth control as a reason for leaving. Although these numbers are higher than for Catholics who become evangelicals, they are still dwarfed by the number (57 percent) who said their spiritual needs were not met in the Catholic church.

Thus, those becoming evangelicals were more generically unhappy than specifically unhappy with church teaching, while those who became mainline Protestant tended to be more specifically unhappy than generically unhappy with church teaching. The unhappiness with the church’s teaching on poverty, war and the death penalty was equally low for both groups (11 percent for evangelicals; 10 percent for mainline).

What stands out in the data on Catholics who join mainline churches is that they tend to cite personal or familiar reasons for leaving more frequently than do those who become evangelicals. Forty-four percent of the Catholics who join mainline churches say that they married someone of the faith they joined, a number that trumps all doctrinal issues. Only 22 percent of those who join the evangelicals cite this reason.

Perhaps after marrying a mainline Christian and attending his or her church’s services, the Catholic found the mainline services more fulfilling than the Catholic service. And even if they were equally attractive, perhaps the exclusion of the Protestant spouse from Catholic Communion makes the more welcoming mainline church attractive to an ecumenical couple.

Those joining mainline communities also were more likely to cite dissatisfaction of the Catholic clergy (39 percent) than were those who became evangelical (23 percent). Those who join mainline churches are looking for a less clerically dominated church.

There are many lessons that we can learn from the Pew data, but I will focus on only three.

First, those who are leaving the church for Protestant churches are more interested in spiritual nourishment than doctrinal issues. Tinkering with the wording of the creed at Mass is not going to help. No one except the Vatican and the bishops cares whether Jesus is “one in being” with the Father or “consubstantial” with the Father. That the hierarchy thinks this is important shows how out of it they are.

While the hierarchy worries about literal translations of the Latin text, people are longing for liturgies that touch the heart and emotions. More creativity with the liturgy is needed, and that means more flexibility must be allowed. If you build it, they will come; if you do not, they will find it elsewhere. The changes that will go into effect this Advent will make matters worse, not better.

Second, thanks to Pope Pius XII, Catholic scripture scholars have had decades to produce the best thinking on scripture in the world. That Catholics are leaving to join evangelical churches because of the church teaching on the Bible is a disgrace. Too few homilists explain the scriptures to their people. Few Catholics read the Bible.

The church needs a massive Bible education program. The church needs to acknowledge that understanding the Bible is more important than memorizing the catechism. If we could get Catholics to read the Sunday scripture readings each week before they come to Mass, it would be revolutionary. If you do not read and pray the scriptures, you are not an adult Christian. Catholics who become evangelicals understand this.

Finally, the Pew data shows that two-thirds of Catholics who become Protestants do so before they reach the age of 24. The church must make a preferential option for teenagers and young adults or it will continue to bleed. Programs and liturgies that cater to their needs must take precedence over the complaints of fuddy-duddies and rubrical purists.

Current religious education programs and teen groups appear to have little effect on keeping these folks Catholic, according to the Pew data, although those who attend a Catholic high school do appear to stay at a higher rate. More research is needed to find out what works and what does not.

The Catholic church is hemorrhaging members. It needs to acknowledge this and do more to understand why. Only if we acknowledge the exodus and understand it will we be in a position to do something about it.

Salvation and redemption are two DIFFERENT words. Jesus redeemed you on the Cross, He didn’t justify you by His death on the Cross.

Yes, He did.

Romans 5:9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

The justification is appropriated by faith.

Romans 3:26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:28-30 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 10:10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Galatians 2:15-16 15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Galatians 3:8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

Galatians 3:24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

The final words above, are an absolute lie. Our sins are not washed away by Christ’s death on the Cross.

Which is totally contradicted by the clear teaching of Scripture.

Galatians 2:15-21 15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law,because by works of the law no one will be justified.

17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Galatians 3 3 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

15 To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. 21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

Perhaps someone better to explain in detail is needed. If you are truly searching for truth as to the erroneous teachings of the RCC you will read this all.

From: http://ichthys.com/mail-Mary-full-of-grace.htm

Response #1: Nonsense like this "bugs" me too! Let me begin by pointing out that Mary too was a bit confused by this greeting, wondering "what kind of greeting this might be" (Lk.1:29 NIV). The angel Gabriel himself responds with the explanation: "But the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor (charis-grace) with God'" (Lk.1:30). The word italicized here, favor or "grace", is the root word of the verbal form in question. That is to say, kecharitomene is "grace", charis, made into a verb (to be specific, a verbal participle). Thus we have from God's messenger himself an answer to this question, if we are but ready to receive it, namely, Mary is called by this epithet because she had "garnered grace" in God's eyes through her exemplary spiritual life (cf. the similar praise given to her cousins, Zechariah and Elizabeth earlier in the chapter: Lk.1:6). And that, after all, is the literal meaning of kecharitomene, namely, "having been graced". Further, because Mary had "found" this favor/grace/charis at some point in the past, by definition she was not born with it. This favor came about from something she did, namely, believing in the Lord and walking in a way pleasing to Him through spiritual growth and service. This explanation from Gabriel proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that his appellation in question here does not imply sinlessness, but rather demonstrates Mary's spiritual prominence, divine favor of the sort available to all believers but, sadly, appropriated by few.

It really irritates me when people who are used to dealing with others who don't have degrees in Greek use their insufficient knowledge as a sort of sledge hammer to "settle" all arguments. Based on the above, a simple answer to give your respondent would be: "hogwash!", but I suppose we should go into the details:

1) Transliterated the actual form of the word in question would be kecharitomene, but anyone dealing with Greek would describe it as what it is, a participle of the verb charitoo.

2) Of all Indo-European languages of which I am aware, Greek is the most root-focused. The import of that fact here is that this verb is based on a root meaning "favor" (cf. Greek charis); that is what is at the core of charitoo's meaning, and that is the key to discovering what this particular form of the verb means or might mean in turn. To put the matter in terms of its essential accidence, charitoo is merely a factitive verb, that is, it's what someone does when they want to take a noun and turn it into a transitive/causative verb. Therefore, by its structure and root the verb ought to mean "to give or bestow favor-grace to or on someone". In the case of a perfect participle in passive voice (such as we have here), the form would then mean "someone who has had favor-grace given/bestowed to/on them (i.e., from some source)".

3) To call this word a "hapax" in an attempt to bestow some sort of uniqueness on it is disingenuous. Not only does this verb occur throughout Greek literature - it also occurs elsewhere in the Bible at Ephesians 1:6:

Having foreordained us for adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will, for the purpose of producing (at salvation) praise for the glory of His grace which He has graciously bestowed on us in the Beloved [One]. Ephesians 1:5-6

Another way to put the italicized phrase is "the favor-grace with which He has favored-graced us"; in the Greek its charin hes echaritosen. In other words, the verb in question from Luke 1:28 has as its first or internal object "favor/grace" and as its second or true direct object "us". We get / have gotten favor/grace from God in Jesus Christ. We know that here because the verse says so explicitly, but that is not any kind of surprise for anyone who understands that grace is favor, and specifically and importantly in the Bible it is God's favor, His beneficence, good will, grace, kindliness, etc. directed our way because of our relationship with His Son. We are all said to have this grace in Ephesians 1:6 expressed by exactly the same verb as is used in Luke 1:28. That doesn't mean, of course, that we never sin!

4) The voice is surely not significant here in terms of changing the essential meaning of the verb (it merely views the action from the recipient's point of view instead of the donor's as is the case in the Ephesians passage above). As your correspondent doesn't make any claim based on the voice in any case, I will pass on immediately to the tense of the participle. The perfect tense is the rarest of the four tense stems in Greek – outside of biblical literature. The reason is simple enough. The Greeks are very big on duality, and in the aorist and present stems they are able to express either continuous "Aktionsart" (as the Germans would say) with the present stem (i.e., "it is happen-ing"), or with the aorist stem a punctiliar idea of timelessness (i.e., "it happen-s"). This is true whether or not one wishes to apply such timeless "happening" to a small or to an infinite amount of time. I like to describe this phenomenon to my classes as the difference between a straight line with an arrow indicating motion (present), and an "x" which marks an unmoving spot (aorist) – they never seem to get it without much pain, however, so don't despair if all this seems a tad confusing. Essentially, "aspect" is of little true effect in Greek usage. There are very few instances when the difference between these stems means very much except as it has a temporal application. Generally speaking, authors will use an aorist versus a present infinitive, e.g., more because they like the way it sounds in context than for any other apparent reason. But the fact is that they were able to make all the distinction they wanted or needed to make with these two. The perfect stem forms, as can be plainly seen from kecharitomene, tend to be long and cumbersome, and so from the same stylistic concerns (coupled with the dislike of the idea of perfect – the Greeks are much more likely to say something "happened" when we would say it "has happened"), the perfect is used much less frequently – in non-biblical Greek. In all biblically derived Greek, however, one cannot discount the enormous influence of Hebrew, and it is often the case in scripture that the tenses – especially where the perfect is used – reflect the fact that Hebrew has an imperfect and a perfect to deal with past tense ideas, and that is all. For this reason it should not be surprising that faced with a choice translators and writers under Hebrew influence would often gravitate to the use of the perfective forms in Greek when they have in mind a perfective exemplar in Hebrew (not unlike the similar influence that Latin begins to wield later on some non-biblical Greek). These facts taken together have the decided effect of greatly diminishing the significance of the occurrence of a perfect form in biblical Greek (as in our case).

5) The idea that one can read into this word meaning "object of grace/favor" any degree of sinlessness or perfection on the basis of a "perfect" verb form indicates a complete misunderstanding of what "perfect" means in grammatical terms. In verbs, it only means "completed action" – not sinlessness! To go back to the discussion in point 4 above, if the present is a line with an arrow and the aorist is an "x", then the perfect would be a line with an "x" at the end, that is, action begun in the past and now complete. The action doesn't have to have begun in eternity nor does the completion of the action impart perfection of any sort on the object. In our case all it would mean is that Mary had received favor from God in the past and was still in His good-graces. In short, this is just a verb form, not a miracle or the representation of one. If the perfect tense could do all the author claims, then every time it says anything about "knowing" in scripture (for oida is perfective in all of its forms), it would mean "knowing with a perfect knowledge that was conceived in eternity past": such a convention of translation would lead only to utter nonsense (cf. Acts 16:3).

6) Finally as to the translation "full of grace", while there is nothing to recommend the "full of" here, it's not really the translation that's the problem but rather what R.C. theology attempts to do with it (and would no doubt attempt to do with any reasonable translation), namely, to make Mary sinless or special in some super-human way based upon this appellation. Mary was special indeed, a true believer in a time of wide-spread apostasy, and obviously an exceptionally good one too, with whom the Lord was well-pleased indeed. But there is no indication that she was perfect, nor was there any need for her to be, for the only way to avoid the reception of a sin nature is to be virgin born as the sin nature is passed down through the male side (see Bible Basics 3B: Hamartiology, section I.2, "The Sin Nature"). It was the fact that Jesus was born without human male participation that produces a body free from sin, not any supposed sinlessness on Mary's part.

Also in Luke, Luke 2:52 to be precise, we are told that "Jesus continued to grow in wisdom, and in stature, and in grace with God and men". If grace or favor is progressive in the case of our unquestionably perfect Lord, how could it be that in Mary's case she was "perfectly filled with grace from eternity"? Clearly, even our Lord in His capacity as a true human being was required to grow spiritually, showing that even in the case of someone who did not in fact possess a sin nature or ever sin, still, grace or favor received from God remains a relative thing and is still dependent upon one's actions rather than being some sort of "magic" one just has. Long story short, this idea about Mary being perfect coming from Luke 1:28 is ridiculous on the face of it. Even the preferred R.C. translation doesn't say or imply that – unless, as I say, we imagine grace as "magic" and give "full of" the idea of absolute perfection and eternal residency, neither of which is either biblical or theologically reasonable to anyone who is consulting scripture and thinking for themselves.

In our truly perfect Lord in whom we have been given grace abundantly, our dear Savior Jesus Christ.

Bob L.

Galatians 4:4-5, "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."

Wow! Eight or nine replies to take apart, to protest sentence by sentence Catholic writings and my posts last evening, I think they’re all to other people.

Who would go to such an effort especially when they post Jesus death on the Cross justifies them? They’re in, they’re saved.

There are lurkers reading those threads who need to read the TRUTH of Scripture to counter the erroneous teaching about salvation put forth by Catholicism. Baptism does not save. Salvation is and always has been by faith.

Tell me, how did people get saved BEFORE the Catholic church came along? If Catholicism is the way of salvation, then why didn't God just institute that in the first place instead of giving the Law?

Why bother?

So people can read the truth. And besides, why do Catholics feel the need to post their beliefs? Aren't others equally entitled to post theirs?

Forget using the Bible to come against the Church and second, private judgment is a man-made teaching, not of Christ.

Why? God's word is Truth and THE truth.

John 17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

2 Corinthians 4:2 But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

Ephesians 1:13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,

And some people, tell them the sun is yellow, they will disagree.

That's right. It constantly amazes me how some people will deny clear, plainly stated truths out of the Bible and constantly believe teachings which are outright contradicted by Scripture.

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