by Laurence Rossi
Special to The Leaven
ATCHISON — Justin West is a husband, father, marketing professional and longtime OCIA instructor. More recently, however, he’s gone viral in Catholic circles by posting catchy songs centered on apologetics under an account called Peter’s Barque.
Focused on providing concise, fun apologetics, West’s short-form videos took off almost immediately after he started posting them online last November. With nearly 30,000 followers across TikTok, X, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, his account’s organic growth in just over two months has been impressive.
December, luckily for West, is not only a slow month for his business, but is also a vibrant month on the liturgical calendar. He was able to spend much of the Christmas season generating ideas, writing lyrics, arranging music and was able to put out a new song nearly every day. A timely video on the Immaculate Conception quickly rose to prominence. West attributes much of his rapid success to his prodigious output early on.
“Immediately, I had people reacting to them very, very positively,” he said.
His choice of the name Peter’s Barque has multiple layers. The primary inspiration is the Barque of St. Peter, a symbol of the church as a ship steered by St. Peter, depicted in several classical paintings. Secondarily, he liked the idea of a homophonic pun on “bark,” reflecting the snarky tone of his early songs.
And lastly, the name was unclaimed on every platform he posts on.
“It was just oddly fortuitous,” according to West, that such a thematic symbol of the church had not been picked up by any other online catechists.
While the artwork he uses for the backdrops of his videos is generated with AI, the rest is all him. West writes all the lyrics himself and personally arranges all his music digitally. He typically makes 10 to 20 versions of a song before he finds one that resonates with him enough to publish.
A catechist at heart
West describes himself first and foremost as a catechist and an apologist, not a musician or an influencer.
“I’m very upfront about that — I am not a musician. I am a catechist at the end of the day,” he said. “I include that fact on every single song I do. I’m a catechist.”
West has served as an OCIA instructor at his local parish of St. Benedict in Atchison for over 20 years. So, he had been answering myriad theological questions long before he began making videos.
Moreover, he considers apologetics a lifelong hobby. In fact, apologetics are how he found himself reverting back to Catholicism as an agnostic teen.
“I came into my faith kicking and screaming,” West said with a smirk.
“I wanted to write Catholicism off,” he added. But out of academic honesty, he always researched Catholic responses to the common objections he found. “I’d find that the response was always better than the question.”
Over time, West found himself actively defending Catholicism, and eventually realized, “I think I actually believe this.” His intellectual conversion was soon followed by a conversion of the heart.
Since then, he’s passionately engaged in apologetics online, including long-form videos on YouTube. However, he often found himself frustrated with what is known as “shotgun apologetics.” This is a tactic sometimes employed by Catholicism’s detractors and involves overwhelming the defendant with so many claims that responding to them all becomes exhausting.
“They can make a claim in one sentence, but it can take paragraphs to explain why that sentence is wrong,“ West said.
In an attempt to tackle one such barrage head-on, he ended up filming a two-hour video that nobody watched. It made him wonder if there might be a better way to do this.
“I wanted to try and present an argument as clearly as I could from as many quick angles as possible, referencing Scripture, history, tradition and philosophy,” he said. “And I realized I could do that in song form.”
Peter’s Barque sprang from this realization.
“Now, instead of sitting in a forum and coming up with a 13-paragraph answer that 12 people will see, I can take that 13-paragraph answer and turn it into a song and tens of thousands of people see it,” he said.
Bearing fruits
West has received an outpouring of positive feedback for Peter’s Barque. His videos are being shared in OCIA programs, theology classes and even Sunday school classes. Several people have even reached out to let him know that his music inspired them to return to church after years away.
Just as West did not expect his videos to spread so quickly, he has no particular goals, nor has he thought about what the end of the road might look like. What he does know, however, is he earnestly enjoys using his gifts in a way that he never expected to, and that this endeavor is bearing fruit for the faithful.
“As long as the ministry keeps bearing fruit,” he said, “I’m going to try and dedicate time to it.”
You can find Peter’s Barque on the following platforms: TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, X, Spotify and at: petersbarquemusic.com.
