Why Men Are Leaving Church (And Why Catholicism Isn't the Answer) — Watchman's Warning Interview

I recently had the chance to sit down with Randy Keener — pastor, writer, host of the Unmovable Apologetics podcast, and an old brother I hadn't spoken to in about 22 years. We reconnected through a mutual friend in Florida, and what was supposed to be a quick catch-up turned into a 70-minute conversation that covered church, masculinity, authority, conspiracy culture, and the dangerous shortcuts men take when they want the fruit without the root.

Here's what came out of it.

Men are leaving effeminate churches. But they're not going somewhere better.

Randy put his finger on something I've been watching for years. Young men are fed up with worship that feels therapeutic, soft, and personality-driven. The "Jesus is my boyfriend" era produced a generation of men who see church as a women's thing — something their wives do while they're out on the oil rigs or working the fields.

I told Randy what I see in the Midwest every day: "A majority of the Lutheran pastors in my town are women. And not only are they women, they're lesbians. If you're a red-blooded man, you're not going to be drawn to that. You're going to see religion as a way to manipulate men."

That's a hard thing to say, but it's what I hear from the men I interact with in small-town North Dakota. The church, in a lot of places, has given them every reason to walk.

The problem is where they're walking to. Randy referenced a 2024 New York Post article on the resurgence of Orthodoxy — young men sprinting toward ritual, incense, and tradition. He said it well: "They're trading effeminate worship for masculine ritual. Neither one in and of itself is a good thing." The trad wife movement, the rise in Catholicism, the return to sacraments — these are people taking Tylenol for cancer. The symptoms are real. The cure they're reaching for isn't.

The conspiracy rabbit hole has a bottom, and it's not good.

We spent a chunk of the interview talking about something that touches my Dead Hidden readers directly — the world of Genesis 6, Nephilim, pre-flood civilizations, UFOs, and all the fringe territory that a lot of Bible-curious people get sucked into. I've written about some of it. I've had to course correct.

Randy laid it out plainly: "When I get hyper-focused on those things, before long the gospel and doctrine take a back seat to arguing for the Nephilim or arguing for what Bigfoot is. And you end up in these traps. I think that's a tactic of the enemy."

I've seen the end of that road. I know a man in my area — not a saved man, just a man who stumbled onto creation evidence and then went ten exits past it. He can tell you about whale bones in the Sahara, giant doorways in South America, and every conspiracy that's ever been posted online. He cannot give you the gospel. He never made it to the heart of the matter: he is a lost sinner who needs Christ. The interesting stuff swallowed the essential thing.

I ended a conference on this topic a few months ago with this: when people discover that Genesis 6 is about fallen angels rather than the godly line of Seth, they think they've found the deep things of the Bible. They haven't. "The meat and potatoes of scripture is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the depth and the riches of that book."

The local church problem is an authority problem.

The last thread Randy and I pulled on was the epidemic of men who've abandoned local church altogether. They've got internet pastors, YouTube teachers, and home churches of two guys who agree on every conspiracy. Randy called them "lone wolf Christians," and he's right.

His take: "It all boils down to people these days have an issue with authority. They just don't want to respect authority."

I've driven an hour to church for years. I've attended churches where I wasn't a full theological match and kept my mouth shut, served faithfully, and eventually had influence. That's how it works. You don't go in guns blazing to straighten everyone out, or you end up as a castaway on your couch watching YouTube. Randy has a family in his church that drives four hours one way to attend. Four hours. The excuse of "there's no good church near me" is almost always a cop-out for "I don't want to be under anyone's authority."

The internet — Substack, X, podcasts, all of it — is not a replacement for a local body. I've had people comment "Pastor" on my feed and I correct them every time. I'm not your pastor. I can't be with you in the hospital. I can't sit with your family when something falls apart. There is no substitute for that.

Where to find the full conversation

This was one of those rare conversations where we didn't have to be careful with each other. Randy and I share a history, share convictions, and weren't interested in performing for anyone. If you want the full 71 minutes, it's on Spotify:

Listen on Spotify

And if you don't already know Randy's work, go to watchmanswarning.com. He and a small team of brothers are posting daily — real, doctrinal, unafraid writing. Worth your time.