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The coming evangelical collapse
keltic1701
Member Posts: 1,162
I found this op/ed article quite interesting, if not some what dire, considering it came from a evangelical minister.
The coming evangelical collapse
By Michael Spencer Michael Spencer Tue Mar 10, 4:00 am ET
Oneida, Ky. – We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.
Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.
This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.
Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.
Why is this going to happen?
1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.
The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.
2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.
3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.
4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.
5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.
6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.
7. The money will dry up.
What will be left?
•Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.
•Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
•A small band will work hard to rescue the movement from its demise through theological renewal. This is an attractive, innovative, and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing, and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.
•The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.
•Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.
•Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion? To do so, it must make a priority of biblical authority, responsible leadership, and a reemergence of orthodoxy.
•Evangelicalism needs a "rescue mission" from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?
•Expect a fragmented response to the culture war. Some Evangelicals will work to create their own countercultures, rather than try to change the culture at large. Some will continue to see conservatism and Christianity through one lens and will engage the culture war much as before – a status quo the media will be all too happy to perpetuate. A significant number, however, may give up political engagement for a discipleship of deeper impact.
Is all of this a bad thing?
Evangelicalism doesn't need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral. But what about what remains?
Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshal resources, training, and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches.
Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership. We must change the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate ones.
The ascendency of Charismatic-Pentecostal-influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if reformation can reach those churches and if it is joined with the calling, training, and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Holy Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing.
Will the evangelicalizing of Catholic and Orthodox communions be a good development? One can hope for greater unity and appreciation, but the history of these developments seems to be much more about a renewed vigor to "evangelize" Protestantism in the name of unity.
Will the coming collapse get Evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about the loss of substance and power? Probably not. The purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in fine form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church's problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time.
Will it shake lose the prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ? Evidence from similar periods is not encouraging. American Christians seldom seem to be able to separate their theology from an overall idea of personal affluence and success.
The loss of their political clout may impel many Evangelicals to reconsider the wisdom of trying to create a "godly society." That doesn't mean they'll focus solely on saving souls, but the increasing concern will be how to keep secularism out of church, not stop it altogether. The integrity of the church as a countercultural movement with a message of "empire subversion" will increasingly replace a message of cultural and political entitlement.
Despite all of these challenges, it is impossible not to be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, "Christianity loves a crumbling empire."
We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.
We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.
I'm not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?
• Michael Spencer is a writer and communicator living and working in a Christian community in Kentucky. He describes himself as "a postevangelical reformation Christian in search of a Jesus-shaped spirituality." This essay is adapted from a series on his blog, InternetMonk.com .
Comments
Good riddance to bad rubbish. This will not happen soon enough.
wow first its government now you want to see christianity (evanglicism?) collapse too. Maybe we should move towards an anarchy type society to please teala
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that was an excellent read. Being in Europe for a few years and seeing the impact that the reformation had on the communities and lasting identity of the people here has been fascinating.
i particularly like the following
then there is a certain irony in seeing Darwinian selection occurring on the population of evangelical faiths.
What he is witnessing (no pun intended) is the collapse of legalism WITHIN evengelicalism.
Legalistic Christians tried to take over Christianity, society and our government, failed, and now that is collapsing around them. They claimed that only THEY knew the Bible and what it meant. They were wrong, and their dead Churches empty of the Holy Spirit yet full of self-satisfied salvation show this. That kind of thing doesn't wash. It never really could.
We are moving from a Christianity with elitism and no grace to one with grace in charge. I see it as a good thing, kinda like what happened when Methodism was born.
This has been happening within Christianity all along; Crackup, reform, crackup. Most disorganized religion in the history of faith, and that is its saving grace (pun intended).
fishermage.blogspot.com
I have to 100% disagree.
Wther you do not believe in Christianity or not, there are many great people who are doing great things because their convictions are rooted in rules such as love your neighbor as yourself, shower people with kindness, etc.
What is rubbish to you may not be rubbish to others. For example, I find dancing naked on a pole for money is rubbish, but I am sure you would disagree.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
I have to 100% disagree.
Wther you do not believe in Christianity or not, there are many great people who are doing great things because their convictions are rooted in rules such as love your neighbor as yourself, shower people with kindness, etc.
What is rubbish to you may not be rubbish to others. For example, I find dancing naked on a pole for money is rubbish, but I am sure you would disagree.
If more of us practiced love your neighbor, this wouldn't be happening. This is the result of rejecting that attitude for the worship of Salvation rather than God. Instead of being out there and making the world a better place, they have been sitting around waiting for the world to end, scaring people, and then trying to sell them eternal life insurance.
That's one wing of evangelicalism.
The other wing tried to impose their vision of Legalistic Christianity over all of us.
Meanwhile, the main body -- all the good people who are doing what you say, and that I admire and try to consider myself part of, have been growing dissatisfied and are leaving the Churches.
When people like Teala say what they say, we only have ourselves as Christians to blame.
There is a great book put out by the Barna group, called "UnChristian." I highly recommend it for any Christian or evangelical who wants to read about the effect their behavior is having.
fishermage.blogspot.com
I have to 100% disagree.
Wther you do not believe in Christianity or not, there are many great people who are doing great things because their convictions are rooted in rules such as love your neighbor as yourself, shower people with kindness, etc.
What is rubbish to you may not be rubbish to others. For example, I find dancing naked on a pole for money is rubbish, but I am sure you would disagree.
I am assuming for the moment that Teala meant the denomination group in particular, and not Christianity as a whole. In that case, I am quite inclined to agree with both her and Fisher above.
Frankly, the Evangelical movement has been making themselves and the rest of the Christian faith by association look like a bunch of asswipes to the rest of the world. Not only that, but the convictions of most of their individual members recently have more and more often been betrayed as blind faith, mostly born of ignorence, as mentioned in the above article I might add.
I will agree with you that Christianity causes some of its followers to do good works. (just how many would have done them anyways is in question, but I digress) However, the evangelical movement on the whole has strayed to the point that it causes significantly more harm than good. I will be quite interested in seeing how this works out.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
I have to 100% disagree.
Wther you do not believe in Christianity or not, there are many great people who are doing great things because their convictions are rooted in rules such as love your neighbor as yourself, shower people with kindness, etc.
What is rubbish to you may not be rubbish to others. For example, I find dancing naked on a pole for money is rubbish, but I am sure you would disagree.
If more of us practiced love your neighbor, this wouldn't be happening. This is the result of rejecting that attitude for the worship of Salvation rather than God. Instead of being out there and making the world a better place, they have been sitting around waiting for the world to end, scaring people, and then trying to sell them eternal life insurance.
That's one wing of evangelicalism.
The other wing tried to impose their vision of Legalistic Christianity over all of us.
Meanwhile, the main body -- all the good people who are doing what you say, and that I admire and try to consider myself part of, have been growing dissatisfied and are leaving the Churches.
When people like Teala say what they say, we only have ourselves as Christians to blame.
There is a great book put out by the Barna group, called "UnChristian." I highly recommend it for any Christian or evangelical who wants to read about the effect their behavior is having.
This is a good post. 100% agree.
O_o o_O
I agree. I think of it as poison being diluted more and more as time goes on.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Typical Christian tactic. Fear is the great motivator for belief. Always has been, always will be. Even this article proves it by quoting, "Christianity loves a crumbling empire."
Why would something so awful be an opportunity for Christianity? The chaos and uncertainty drives people to fairy tales that bring them comfort. No Atheist in a foxhole? In a death bed? Factually inaccurate, to be sure, but a favored saying of Christians -- and always with that smug attitude as they pretend to know something you don't.
These are the places that Christianity preys on you. You're afraid, uncertain, and in your bargaining phase, so a person turns to something supernatural in hopes that they might live through their current circumstances unharmed. Whether that be praying to a god(s), doing a rain dance to survive a drought, or wearing your lucky body paint to aid you in hunting so you can feed your family... it is all the same.
This article? Feeding the fear of the fundies that everything they know will change and leave them in chaos. Oh, no, here comes the secularism! Watch out, they're all going to hate you!
Yeah, right. Unfortunately, you quacks aren't going anywhere anytime soon. The churches will continue to grow, they'll keep taking your fear money, and they'll feed like vampires in the places where you fear the most. They say gluttony is a sin, but they are shoveling the fear down your throat faster than you can swallow. In today's world, you don't even need to threaten Hell, you can just throw out terrorism, nuclear weapons, diseases, and fag borne hurricanes. Pray to god enough and maybe the terrorists won't fly into your building. Condemn the gays enough and maybe god won't punish your city with bad weather.
Oh, but wait, Christianity does so much good... you see, they take your money, build enormous buildings, pay their large bills that come with large buildings, and the employees needed for these things, erect basketball courts to bring in the youth (jesus loves basketball, don'tcha know?), publish material to convince their followers that science is bad for you, and then spit out a measly amount of aid to the community and call themselves charitable. (Yes, yes, I'm sure YOUR church is entirely different... just don't look at that budget!)
This article is bunk, but the sheeple will love it. Enough articles like this and the persecution complex can grow into full theocracy. You're not being persecuted. You are the majority. It is everyone else that needs to be afraid of what you will do in your haste to 'protect' yourselves from the minority. Ugh, it's like watching a 6' tall, 200lb., 5th grader pummel a tiny 3rd grader into the ground out of self-defense.
I wish this article were true, but it is not. It's just more of the same drivel you people come up with to whip yourselves into a frenzy. I wish I were so persecuted in this country, my life would be grand indeed.
- LC
In Europe we already got rid of them long time ago.
Meanwhile the Pope is making sure is going to eliminate the rest of the Christian community with all his "retro" policies.
On the other hand Muslims are moving in, and we will be in the shit in the next few decades, unless the Euro politicians stop with this respect of human rights bullshit and close the bloody borders.
PS: I am all for multietnic societies but there is simply not control on who is getting in at the moment.
Well if Christ returns within the timeframe written about in the article, there won't be any Christians left at all. So he could be right, but not in the way he is predicting.
But, otherwise, this article is similiar to what Voltaire said back in the 18th century. He said Christianity would be extinct within 80 years of his death. Well, Voltaire has passed from history and Christianity survives.
Bah, why would he even say that. And if it falls, well it's still prophised anyways. Even the very elect will be decieved. If it falls, it wont change my faith. I don't care if a grey alien came down and said we created you. And hes from KY so hes giving this state a bad name! bah that man!
Wow so let me get this straight if someone or something came to you and gave you proof that they were really your creator you will not believe them simply because its not what you were taught to believe or its not what you believe in your "heart." That sounds a bit naive to me that you would be that blind.
I come back to read
I agree. I think of it as poison being diluted more and more as time goes on.
Name 5 reasons why it is poison?(And I mean Christainity, not Christians) And I don't want to hear the crusades or what the Catholics did or what happened in Salem. I am talking about now.
Wow so let me get this straight if someone or something came to you and gave you proof that they were really your creator you will not believe them simply because its not what you were taught to believe or its not what you believe in your "heart." That sounds a bit naive to me that you would be that blind.
Well I said a grey alien, I didn't say something or someone did I? So what you just says is completelty redundant. I know what God is and who He is to know if I was being lied to or not. Just because you didn't have an experience to justify this reasoning -- I just don't agree with you.
I agree. I think of it as poison being diluted more and more as time goes on.
Name 5 reasons why it is poison? And I don't want to hear the crusades or what the Catholics did or what happened in Salem. I am talking about now.
Because there are enough christian radicals (note that I didn't say radical christians) who don't know what is actually in the Bible who want to impede science to make the rest of us look like a bunch of nut cases who are afraid of progress.
Don't get me wrong, I do not believe that Christianity is going to go away any time soon...but that's one of the more common arguments against Christianity. Truthfully though, the war on science that secularists claim that Christians are waging isn't a product of Christianity, it's a product of materialism...The search for answers based around conclusions that have already been reached is what is stopping scientific progress...I'm speaking mostly about evolutionary science and cosmology here of course...as far as social trends being changed by Christianity, I can't honestly say that I'm sorry for what the Christians have done. It is no different for a Christian to fight for what he believes in than it is for an atheist or an agnostic...The common argument against this is that what the Christians fight for causes oppression among groups such as the homosexuals...This might be true from a secular sense and if that is your world view then it is most certainly true that Christians stand in the way of your happiness...Think of us as the nice guy that the girls never wanted to date, but simultaneously continued to date losers all of their lives...He may argue with you about the guy that you're with and frustrate the hell out of you, he may even give you some poetry and make you feel uncomfortable, but ultimately he has your best interests at heart.
As for comments like Teala's...well, that's all hypocritical nonsense as far as I'm concerned...You want to end what you view as a blight on society by doing the very things to them that you claim they have done to others...You want to respond to their good intentions with ill will and hatred...It's not only hypocritcal, it's malicious.
Oh dang, a GUY just called Teala a hypocrite...sorry guys, but I don't live in fantasy land where if I'm nice to Teala she'll give me hot cyberz...you people that suck up to her need to grow a pair of testicles and start interacting with real women.
There, I said it.
Your argument is like a two legged dog with an eating disorder...weak and unbalanced.
I agree. I think of it as poison being diluted more and more as time goes on.
Name 5 reasons why it is poison? And I don't want to hear the crusades or what the Catholics did or what happened in Salem. I am talking about now.
Because there are enough christian radicals (note that I didn't say radical christians) who don't know what is actually in the Bible who want to impede science to make the rest of us look like a bunch of nut cases who are afraid of progress.
Don't get me wrong, I do not believe that Christianity is going to go away any time soon...but that's one of the more common arguments against Christianity. Truthfully though, the war on science that secularists claim that Christians are waging isn't a product of Christianity, it's a product of materialism...The search for answers based around conclusions that have already been reached is what is stopping scientific progress...I'm speaking mostly about evolutionary science and cosmology here of course...as far as social trends being changed by Christianity, I can't honestly say that I'm sorry for what the Christians have done. It is no different for a Christian to fight for what he believes in than it is for an atheist or an agnostic...The common argument against this is that what the Christians fight for causes oppression among groups such as the homosexuals...This might be true from a secular sense and if that is your world view then it is most certainly true that Christians stand in the way of your happiness...Think of us as the nice guy that the girls never wanted to date, but simultaneously continued to date losers all of their lives...He may argue with you about the guy that you're with and frustrate the hell out of you, he may even give you some poetry and make you feel uncomfortable, but ultimately he has your best interests at heart.
As for comments like Teala's...well, that's all hypocritical nonsense as far as I'm concerned...You want to end what you view as a blight on society by doing the very things to them that you claim they have done to others...You want to respond to their good intentions with ill will and hatred...It's not only hypocritcal, it's malicious.
Oh dang, a GUY just called Teala a hypocrite...sorry guys, but I don't live in fantasy land where if I'm nice to Teala she'll give me hot cyberz...you people that suck up to her need to grow a pair of testicles and start interacting with real women.
There, I said it.
Interesting points. But I must apologize. I should of said Christianity. Not Christains Sorry tomake you write all that out. Here, I will edit my post correctly.
Also, its Christainity is what is taught. Just because a small sect of christian radicals are that way, still does not define Christainity.
Good.
Then maybe we can get back to teaching real science, not "intelligent design" theories.
Don't even say evolution is science, its just a theory too. View both sides of the coin evenly.
Don't even say evolution is science, its just a theory too. View both sides of the coin evenly.
It is a one sided coin. Evolution is a scientific theory, and Intelligent Design is not.
- LC
I agree. I think of it as poison being diluted more and more as time goes on.
Name 5 reasons why it is poison?(And I mean Christainity, not Christians) And I don't want to hear the crusades or what the Catholics did or what happened in Salem. I am talking about now.
Christianity as a concept to the viewer is filtered by Christians the individuals. What they do and say have a bearing on the way people view the concept, and by association upon each other. You may choose to argue that the concept is different in pure form, and I may be inclined to agree with you, but from a practical standpoint, for the rest of the world, the two are inseperable.
To more directly answer your question, those of us who do not believe are inclined to make comments like the one above for a wide variety of reasons, here are a few of mine:
-I resent the fact that if it were not for the Supreme Court doing its job for once it would still be ILLEGAL for me to hold public office in my home state, and 6 other states as well, simply because of my lack of faith. "North Carolina State Constitution, Article VI, Section 8: Sec. 8. Disqualifications for office. The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God." Arkansas goes further, stating that Atheists are incompetant to stand as witness in a court of law. These laws were rightly ruled unconstitutional recently, but the fact that they were ever introduced, and in fact still are on the books, is a slap in the face at best. I further resent the fact that aside from such laws, it is political suicide to admit to anything other than Christianity as a belief.
-I resent the fact that Christian children are taught a highly warped version of certain principles. For instance, I ended up sitting through a lecture on the Miller experiment. The experiment was flawed for a few reasons, mainly due to the fact that we can't accellerate time sufficiently to see what the protiens he created with it do. In any case, the teacher made a huge deal about the fact that Miller left oxygen out of the system! Gasp! I ended up getting thrown out of class that day, simply because I could not shut up about a few well known facts I already knew at the time which refuted the point. First, That the initial organisms to appear were simple forms of anaerobic bacteria, they "breathed" CO2 which is commonly emitted by volcanic activity, they did not require free Oxygen to survive Second, that Oxygen cannot freely exist for any length of time without a catalyst, anyone studying chemistry for more than two seconds should know that Oxygen binds with almost anything. The existence of any significant amount of free oxygen on Earth prior to the existance of O2 exhaling organisms is an impossible feat within the bounds of physics. What does this have to do with the argument? Simply the fact that most of my former classmates took the lesson to heart, not knowing how badly flawed the arguments are. One of them in particular for all I know is still repeating the damn thing almost word for word.
Got to run, more later
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
Don't even say evolution is science, its just a theory too. View both sides of the coin evenly.
Evolution is a guess/theory that is attempted to be tested or proven using the scientific method. Has intelligent design gone through the scientific process to try to be tested or proven? A crocaduck has more to do with personal imagination than testing in a scientific environment.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Wow so let me get this straight if someone or something came to you and gave you proof that they were really your creator you will not believe them simply because its not what you were taught to believe or its not what you believe in your "heart." That sounds a bit naive to me that you would be that blind.
Well I said a grey alien, I didn't say something or someone did I? So what you just says is completelty redundant. I know what God is and who He is to know if I was being lied to or not. Just because you didn't have an experience to justify this reasoning -- I just don't agree with you.
Well I am sort of lacking in my experience with grey aliens so I don't really know how to categorize them. Then second of all since you know what god is and who he is does that mean you have indisputable proof, if so I would love to see it. If not I do not see how what I said was redundant as what you were saying was that you would follow the religion no matter what happens.