I'm shocked about this info, however it makes so much sense. In an article from Christian Science Monitor, the writer believes that within 10 years, evangelical Christianity will suffer a great collapse.
Here are some of the talking points:
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.
Fascinating, I wonder if they will see their failure. I hope they think about that.
9 comments:
Again, extremely interesting.
It couldn't happen to a more deserving group of people. The Evangenitals have been destroying this country in the name of "God" for years.
And the world will be a much better place when their no longer deemed relevant.
I disagree completely!
I hope they don't see their failure, and I hope they don't think about it. I hope this tacky, silly cult of brainwashing will indeed "suffer a great collapse".
If they actually pause and think (which would be a first) they might change course.
one can only hope...
They can all move to a tiny island somewhere as far as I'm concerned
A tiny island that is really a volcano that erupts and destroys them all!
I can't wait until they're marginalized again. Drive back into the woodwork so to speak.
That said, I had a go around with an evangelical on YouTube. You probably can see details if you search my blog for "My Descent into Madness"
In it, Mr. Street Preacher actually has the gall to call me a neo-evangelist.
He'd most certainly be either amused or apoplectic over the fact that I'm an atheist.
But the reason he probably called me neo-evangelist is more than likely because I had 12 years of Catholic schools.
That means I know their dogma as well or better than they do.
And through an odd set of circumstances, I'm also a card carrying man of the cloth. Go figure. That always gets them.
Well, I'm not surprised, Evangelism was a fad and its had its time in the sun. I find really bizarre how they refer to the "rising tide of secularism", as if under the constitution we are not a secularist nation of laws.
It's a pretty spot on assessment. Jerry Farwell doomed his movement, and good riddance. Christianity can do better without them; and as we become a secular nation the better off we will all be.
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