Something Reformation Christians ought to do is familiarize themselves with Roman Catholic theology.
It’s no secret to those who spend a lot of time online in Christian circles that 2025 has been a good year for the Roman Catholic Church. From 2021 to 2025, the United States was served by only its second Roman Catholic president, Joe Biden. In January of this year, J. D. Vance was sworn in as vice president; he is a very publicly committed convert to the Roman Catholic faith.
In May, following the death of Pope Francis, the College of Cardinals elected the first American pope — a Chicagoan born Robert Prevost — now at the helm in the Vatican as Pope Leo XIV.
In the case of American Roman Catholicism, it seems that there’s a great deal of optimism about Leo’s papacy. He communicates natively in English, which means he will excel in clarity where his predecessor struggled due to the ambiguity of translation into languages like English and German. Leo also appears well-positioned to bring unity where the prior papacy exacerbated conflict between traditionalists and progressives. His ministry in Latin America and facility with Spanish only expand his credibility with millions of Roman Catholics around the world.
An atmosphere of optimism is evident in the area of online content creation. Roman Catholic apologetics has never been more popular on platforms like YouTube and X. Debates proliferate between Protestants and Roman Catholics all over the place. Two decades on from a series of deplorable scandals involving clergy sexual abuse, Roman Catholicism is now positioned to reintroduce itself to America and American culture.
Especially in an age of moral chaos and political polarization, the antiquity and stability of the Church of Rome are attractive to many. There are widespread rumors that traditional Latin Masses are well-attended, with many children and young families. While sociologists of religion like Ryan Burge are certain that an actual religious revival is not yet statistically evident, the enthusiasm for traditional expressions of Christian faith is clear, and Roman Catholics are at the forefront.
This raises the question for Christians of the Reformation heritage — Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed — what this Catholic “moment” might mean. Let me outline a couple of temptations and then offer a couple of alternatives that might be more constructive.
The first temptation is to imitate Roman Catholic moral theology. Now, the attraction to the moral stability of Rome is entirely understandable, given the false theory of happiness purveyed by secular culture and the destructive consequences for those pursuing it. Reformation Christians, for example, join Roman Catholics in opposing the corrosion of culture and the family. They are united in their opposition to abortion and the preservation of traditional marriage.
Moralism and legalism are a distraction from the church’s chief task to proclaim the forgiveness of sins in Christ for all the lost.
However, prioritizing the moral heritage of Christian civilization is the responsibility of citizens in the public square, engaging in the work of politics. It doesn’t belong to the church to renew the moral fabric of society, even while the church must always bear witness to the truth about the law and God’s creation. Moralism and legalism are a distraction from the church’s chief task to proclaim the forgiveness of sins in Christ for all the lost.
Indeed, one of the main worries of the Roman party during the Reformation was that Luther’s reform would corrupt the moral integrity of Christian Europe. The primacy of the gospel cannot be displaced by the moral legacy of Christian civilization without giving up the Reformation itself.
Another temptation for Reformation Christians in the Catholic “moment” is of an aesthetic nature. The appeal of Roman Catholicism to many lies in its beauty and antiquity, which is something shared by Lutherans and Anglicans, especially. Historic churches in Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Poland, Finland, and the Baltics are monuments to the ancient heritage of Lutheranism and Anglicanism, even though today they are often poorly attended.
Our worship can be ornate and our buildings inspiring, but the word of the gospel alone creates faith in Christ.
Reformation Christians should uphold the beauty and reverence of their inherited forms of worship, which were passed down by the ancient church and purified by the Reformation. But they should not be tempted to think that faithfulness consists in external appeal: indeed, the gospel is foolishness (1 Cor. 1:18) and Christians worship a Savior who had “no beauty that we should desire him” (Isa. 53:2). The gospel is true, but to sinners, it is not attractive. Our worship can be ornate and our buildings inspiring, but the word of the gospel alone creates faith in Christ.
Something Reformation Christians ought to do is familiarize themselves with Roman Catholic theology. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is widely available and presents the doctrines of Rome in an organized, easily searchable format. Using official sources by learned people is the best way to get quality information. Many Roman Catholic apologists online aren’t experts, just like much Protestant content online is of questionable quality. For a book about Roman Catholicism from a Lutheran perspective, a favorite of mine is The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (1959), by Jaroslav Pelikan. It’s out of print, but there are used copies available, and for those with university email accounts, it can be digitally borrowed from the Internet Archive.
The other thing Reformation Christians ought to do is brush up on some of the principal conflicts of the Reformation. A useful, but highly academic study of the differences between Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism is Daphne Hampson’s Christian Contradictions: The Structures of Lutheran and Catholic Thought (2001). One of Hampson’s main contentions is that there is a chronic misunderstanding of Lutheranism by Roman Catholics, whereas Lutherans tend to understand the structure of Roman Catholic thought more easily. She reveals this dynamic in twentieth-century ecumenical dialogues, which failed to reach consensus on issues such as justification by faith and church authority. This book is also recommended to Roman Catholics seeking to understand the underlying “logic” of Lutheran thought.
Finally, one of the most passionate defenses of Luther’s reform in the modern era is Hermann Sasse’s Here We Stand (1946). Sasse refutes many of the false portraits of the reformer that accumulated between the Reformation and the twentieth century. He skillfully and persuasively articulates what it means for Christ and the gospel to be the center of the church’s life and the engine of its reform.
