A number of high-profile Christians have converted to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. What is driving them away?
In recent decades, there has been a significant and sustained trend of Protestants converting to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. The most notable figure recently is J. D. Vance, the vice-presidential running mate of former president Donald Trump.
But he’s not alone. Vance is just one name in the growing list of high-profile, theologically conservative Christians who have made public shifts away from their Protestant backgrounds (often evangelical) to these more liturgical or “high church” traditions.
Earlier this year, Candace Owens, a controversial conservative voice, announced on the social platform X that she had “made the decision to go home,” in reference to her return to Roman Catholicism. Cameron Bertuzzi of Capturing Christianity, a prominent YouTube channel, reportedly became a Catholic in 2022, and Hank Hanegraaff (the “Bible Answer Man”) of the Christian Research Institute converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2017. Another, Joshua Charles, joined the Catholic church in 2018 and has since become very vocal about both his conversion and his defense of Rome’s doctrines.
Of course, there are always exceptions to every trend, as is the case with former Eastern Orthodox priest Joshua Schooping, author of Disillusioned: Why I Left the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood and Church, and Brad Littlejohn and Chris Castaldo—a Catholic turned Protestant—who together published Why Do Protestants Convert? last year.
This perceived trend also does not appear to be the case in nondenominational churches, since, according to a previous article from CT, former Roman Catholics have gone from comprising 6 percent of nondenominational congregations to 17 percent in the past 50 …
