Posts Tagged evangelical
“The coming evangelical collapse”, an article from Michael Spencer of the Christian Science monitor.
There was a pretty interesting article over on The Christian Science Monitor about the potential demise and collapse of the evangelical movement.
Here’s an excerpt that highlights one of the reasons, according to the author (aka Internet Monk), that this collapse is impending and unstoppable:
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.
Take a second to read the entire article. I’d be interested to know some opinions and criticisms.
Oh, and Christianity Today’s Mark Galli has posted what I think is a fair response from someone in his position.
As senior managing editor of Christianity Today — whose masthead reads “a magazine of evangelical conviction” — it would seem that I have a vested interest in the survival of evangelicalism. Yes and no. On the one hand, as a student of church history, I can also predict that cultural evangelicalism will collapse, not likely in ten years, but collapse it will. On the other hand, evangelicalism will never collapse, at least not until the final altar call.
It’s fair, but it’s also kind of missing the point I think. Evangelicalism (not a redefinition to mean Biblical Christianity in whatever form it currently exists) has become a polarizing movement that aligns itself with political ideologies and attempts at mass market appeal. It can’t market it’s way out of the situation with clever commercials or radical rebranding or awesome alliterations.
But then, I’m probably missing the point too. What do you think?
Fellowship in the Foyer: The Marginal Christian Edition
I was talking to a friend yesterday about their experiences with and in church. We were discussing how difficult it is to have dissenting viewpoints and open discussions without being dismissed outright and judged or boxed in as someone to be converted.
He told me that he was recently in such a discussion with a fellow member of his church. As the conversation progressed and the opinions began to diverge, the conversation came to an abrupt end. When he tried to reengage, he was told that he was barely even a marginal Christian and therefore his opinion didn’t really count.
Now I wasn’t there and I’m interpreting what I heard and probably putting words into peoples mouths. For that I apologize from the bottom of my empty, souless, godless and marginal (at best) heart. But come on. This is so typical of my experience with evangelicals. You are often either a godless sinner in need of conversion or a backsliding underachiever on the prayer chain.
Something is wrong with the social network. Judge not. I’m not saying. I’m just saying.