The Deterioration of Faith

When I began this article, I intended to share the story of my conversion. However, as I started writing, I found myself drawn to the very things that had caused me to abandon the faith in the first place. I found there may be more value in discussing what pushed me away—those same things that affect so many young men today. By sharing the reasons behind my spiritual abdication, I hope to provide an understanding of what drives men like myself to step away from Christianity and what brings them back.

The first crack in my faith was the lack of intellectual rigor. The faith tradition in which I was raised was ill-prepared to handle the questions posed by the modern world. I first noticed these intellectual deficiencies around the age of nine. My Sunday school teacher asked the class, "When you get to heaven, who do you want to meet?" Being a history-obsessed kid, I quickly responded with my hero: "Julius Caesar." She immediately reminded me that Caesar wasn’t a Christian. I pointed out that Caesar had lived before Christ, so he couldn’t deny Him, and therefore was not not a Christian. She remained adamant that Caesar was not in heaven, and this led to an argument about the fate of those who lived and died without knowledge of Christ.

I asked about the uncontacted tribes in the Amazon (an interest of mine sparked by my grandmother’s National Geographic collection). My Sunday school teacher had no answer. From that point on, the questions began to pile up, but answers rarely followed. Rather than encouraging curiosity, my questions seemed unwelcome. By the time I reached my twenties, I was fully engaged with the New Atheist movement, reading Dawkins and Harris. The God Delusion eventually fell into my orbit, and it gave me the answers I had been seeking for years. Armed with a sense of intellectual superiority, I questioned everything—and no preacher I encountered could stand up to my inquiries. I felt that the intellectual foundation of Christianity had crumbled beneath rationalism.

The second blow to my faith was the lack of spiritual seriousness. Growing up, I never felt a sense of the sacred. Contemporary worship felt more like a concert than an act of reverence. How were worship music and smoke machines appropriate for honoring the Creator of the universe? Instead of deep religious conviction, what I encountered felt more like self-help, feel-good "prosperity spirituality." Even in the more traditional worship service, I felt a lack of awe and wonder.

From where I sat, the tradition I was raised in seemed unprepared to confront the harsh realities of life. This became painfully clear when I returned from Afghanistan. I was told, “God had brought me home safely,” and that he had answered my family’s prayers. But I had lost friends—men with children, wives, and families. Men more deserving of life than myself. Had the other families not prayed hard enough? The lack of an answer left me confused and disillusioned. There was no cross to bear, no embracing of suffering—just a hollow spirituality. It felt like the cross without the crucifix and it shattered my faith.

Perhaps the most damaging factor was the lack of masculine influence in my spiritual life. Everywhere I looked, the world of religion seemed dominated by women. I saw my mother pray regularly and listened to my grandmother quote scripture. But I rarely saw men pray outside of grace before meals. The preachers I encountered were often overweight and spoke in that unsettling televangelist cadence. I don’t know that I ever saw a choir director I believed was straight, and the youth pastors were often the kind of kids I had bullied in high school.

I struggled to find masculine role models within the church. Even the Christian heroes of my youth—though they were men of faith—didn’t seem to put it at the forefront of their lives. Their faith was secondary, or nonexistent. I desired examples of strong, masculine men who placed their beliefs at the center of their lives, but they were nowhere to be found. Without these role models, I was left feeling spiritually unmoored, as if the faith was something that men took part in peripherally, rather than as a core part of their identity, something their wives made them do.

This is not meant to be “a case for Catholicism.” However, every rationale I had for leaving the faith was dismantled by Catholic theology. Its intellectual tradition—whether you agree with it or not—stands second to none and there I found answers I had long been seeking. Every question the New Atheists posed as if it elevated them above religious superstition was dismantled in the writings of Aquinas and Augustine, and there was no answer the catechism could not provide.

Catholicism gave me the intellectual rigor I had longed for, but it also offered something deeper: a sense of the sacred. The sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments, the dogma, it provided a level of spiritual gravity that had long been missing in my life. These traditions were infused into my daily life, forcing me to engage with my faith at every moment. And for once I finally saw masculine men whose faith was front and center—kings, knights, saints. Men of action and deep conviction.

For me, Catholicism answered both the intellectual and spiritual questions that had plagued me for years. It provided the sense of awe and reverence I had been missing, and it reintroduced me to a Christianity where men played a prominent and respectable role. Again, this is not meant to lead anyone toward Catholicism, but rather to explain what tore me away from faith and what ultimately brought me back.

When my Protestant brothers and sisters read this, I hope it sheds light on why so many young men are drawn to Catholicism and Orthodoxy. It’s not just about doctrinal differences, but about finding a faith tradition that offers intellectual depth, spiritual seriousness, and strong male role models. Many young men today are seeking something more—something that offers both conviction and strength in the face of modernity.

Of course, many within Protestantism find deep meaning in their faith, and for them, contemporary worship styles or a lack of historical tradition may not pose the same challenges. However, for me, the search for something more, something intellectually and spiritually robust led me elsewhere. I hope that by understanding what led me astray—and ultimately brought me back—others might find ways to strengthen their faith tradition something to help young men hold tight to Christ.

-TJS