As a protestant I had no conception of Christ's descent into Hades. I was never taught any proper understanding of the change in what happens after death before and after Christ at all, despite being in the upper percentiles of evangelical knowledge.

I was led to understand that Old Testament faithful before Christ were in heaven after death. No understanding that everyone went to Hades before Christ's descent. No real conception of how Christ's death permanently changed the game.

It is downright shameful how crucial Christian areas of belief like this are downplayed or totally ignored. I'm convinced most devout western Christians don't really know what they believe at all - not because they're idiots, but because they're not catechized.

Even though I'd consider myself to be among the better educated as a protestant, I think the over-emphasis on penal substitution to the exclusion of pretty much everything else - the Trinity, the Incarnation, theosis - is a glaring problem.

Things that were non-issues for the majority of Christian history - predestination, "faith vs. works", whether the Sacraments actually do anything or not - get all the attention, while areas of vital importance like Christology are virtually ignored.

The hyper-specific conflicts with Rome in the 16th century define protestantism centuries later, while in Orthodoxy, the focus on theosis, the person of Christ, and the Trinity has never wavered.

The schism created over the "social gospel" and divergent notions of what "good works" are and how they fit into the Christian life is fundamentally a product of western Christianity's untethering of the Gospel from an ascetic life, as it was carried by social currents.

This is ongoing today in western Christianity's uncritical embrace of cultural marxist ideas surrounding race, sexuality, and other hot-button areas.

When your faith tradition isn't built upon the Rock, it's liable to get carried out with the modernist tide.