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What will American Christianity look like in 50 years? (Predictions for various denominations)
SILOUAN ^
| 12/21/2012
| Silouan Philip Thompson
Posted on 12/21/2012 3:31:33 PM PST by SeekAndFind
I was asked this in an online forum, and my answer got too long to manage. Here’s my infallible prediction. How did I do?
- Orthodoxy: Little visible change, zero substantive change. Increasing numbers and cultural impact. Progress toward a single American Archdiocese, but still not there yet.
- Catholicism: Neither women priests nor married priests will happen. Increasing disaffection among liberal American Catholics leading to a significant decrease in attendance. Identification as Catholic will be increasingly cultural rather than creedal. This trend, combined with decreasing numbers of men seeking the priesthood, will force additional parish churches to close. This will be slightly offset by conversions from Protestantism, resulting in American Catholic liturgy and pastoral care becoming effectively more traditional. In northern Europe, Catholicism may fade into a cultural memory, but in North America, a leaner, more boldly traditional Catholicism will recover its equilibrium and continue to be a voice of conscience and stability.
- Reformed Christians: Continuing personality issues, but overall the hardcore Reformed will still look and act a lot like they do today, because (almost uniquely among Protestants) Reformed folks know and value their tradition. The edgy/emergey segment will contribute a few cultural differences.
- Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, UCC: Increasing convergence so that they resemble each other almost interchangeably, while de-emphasizing troublesome doctrinal issues until their emphasis on social issues rather than personal salvation turns them into Christian-branded social service agencies. In each movement the conservative outliers will continue to peel off in schisms embodying a previous generation’s norm. Many of these etremely conservative daughter groups will identify strongly with the little-o orthodox “Great Tradition” (cf. Tom Oden)
- Anglicanism outside the US and UK: Few significant or visible changes, except increasing numbers, especially in Africa and Latin America, where Anglicanism is conservative in liturgy and ethos.
- Conservative Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists in North America: I foresee growth and prosperity for individual parishes and dioceses, but overall a continuing fragmentation. Fifty years ago, these groups were culturally relevant and could provide nostalgia for returning Christians; now, in increasingly-unchurched America, they’re culturally unfamiliar but not yet old enough to make a virtue of ancient weirdness the way Eastern Orthodox do.
- Non-charismatic nondenominations will find their kids growing up effectively charismatic nondenoms, with more affinity for styles of contemporary music than for their parents’ doctrinal self-definition. The trend of people choosing congregations based on music and childcare will continue to grow. In-depth teaching of historical doctrine will continue to be a novelty.
- Baptist will continue to be a useless word for describing a set of beliefs or practices, as practically every form of Christian belief and worship can be found among self-described Baptists.
- Charismatic nondenominations: Same story. In the absence of doctrinal accountability, these will continue to generate new approaches and practices every decade or two.
- Old-school Pentecostals (e.g. Foursquare, Assemblies of God, Church of God in Christ, Church of God of Prophecy) in suburbs and wealthy areas will continue to develop in unpredictable ways, ensuring that every generation is nostalgic for a lost experience and baffled by what their churches have become. In the 90s and 00s, the Toronto Blessing, Brownsville Revival, Kansas City Prophets, and new prosperity teachings revisited mid-20th-century phenomena such as the Latter Rain, Manifest Sons of God, and the earlier health-and-prosperity movement springing from EW Kenyon. But the more recent iteration was characterized by a new cultural ignorance of Christian belief or history, which freed it to become crazier, faster. By contrast, change in urban, inner-city contexts and in rural areas will be minimal: Urban churches will continue to be matriarchal and rural churches patriarchal.
TL;DR: in 50 years you’ll see recognizable Orthodox, Catholics and Reformed… and a vast spectrum of Everybody Else, many of them changing in significant ways and seeing that as a virtue.
TOPICS: Catholic; Evangelical Christian; Mainline Protestant; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: christianity; denominations; predictions; trends
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To: johnthebaptistmoore
I have no inside information, but I would not be surprised to see a country wide/world wide fundamental Christian revival. The true word of God will prevail.
To: knarf
and if so ... when?No one knows. You certainly don't know, nor should you be making predictions that it will be soon. We may very well have thousands, even millions of years till that particular event occurs. Some people in every generation think theirs is the last, and they are always wrong.
To: johnthebaptistmoore
Fifty years from now, worldwide secularization will be much more dominant than it is now.On the path we are currently on, this part of your statement is probably true. Then again, one giant worldwide depression or something like it could completely change the direction the world is going in. But yeah, I think Western Christianity is likely to continue weakening as populations in the Western world secularize.
To: SeekAndFind
Fifty years? We shall see. Or, maybe you'll get to see. Absent significant medical advances, I probably won't be.
Straight line extrapolation is likely to break somewhere. Let an end times type persecution scenario break out, and all bets as to how it looks are off.
Orthodoxy: Little visible change, zero substantive change
Because, of course, they never change. I'm being sarcastic. Disaffected evangelicals coming in will bring in evangelical attitudes. Perhaps the Orthoborg can assimilate them, perhaps not.
Catholicism:
Same comments as for the Orthodox.
Reformed Christians:
If not for the current Internet fueled popularity of the "Young, Restless and Reformed" crowd, the author probably wouldn't even be aware of them. The hard core Reformed, those that think that it's about more than "the five points", number a half million or so in N.Am, laboring and worshiping in obscurity. Even adding in the Reformed Baptists wouldn't change that number much.
Lutherans, Episcopagans, Presbyterians, UCC
If there's anything left at all, a shrunken and whithered leftist core, supported by endowments and old money. The gay & the grey don't reproduce well, so where does that leave you? (That's a rhetorical question.)
They'll sell their empty buildings cheap to the Muslims and the charismatics.
Non-charismatic nondenominations
Who knows where they'll end up. Too many different directions. There's the charismawhacky direction. There's the church as mall, church as business megachurch model. Both, I think, end in their own sort of disaster.
24
posted on
12/21/2012 5:13:24 PM PST
by
Lee N. Field
("You keep using that verse, but I do not think it means what you think it means." --I. Montoya)
To: SeekAndFind
>>Even those who are younger than 25?<<
I do believe the rapture will happen prior to that. After that there will be no denominations.
To: SeekAndFind
I’m not seeing one troubling group — atheists.
26
posted on
12/21/2012 6:04:00 PM PST
by
Salvation
("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
To: CynicalBear
RE: I do believe the rapture will happen prior to that.
Interesting, is there a Biblical basis for this belief, or is it just your own feeling?
To: SeekAndFind
Anyone who lumps “Conservative Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists in North America” in one forecast knows little about Christianity.
Lutherans alone vary from ultra-conservative to uber-liberal.
I pay no heed to this article.
And no one knows when the big guy will return. Not even a close estimate.
To: Longbow1969; johnthebaptistmoore
Fifty years from now, worldwide secularization will be much more dominant than it is now.
On the path we are currently on, this part of your statement is probably true. Then again, one giant worldwide depression or something like it could completely change the direction the world is going in. But yeah, I think Western Christianity is likely to continue weakening as populations in the Western world secularize.
Predictions are hard to make. Like you said, if we stay on this path, you're right but 50 years is a long time. A lot of things can happen, world wide collapse due to some catastrophe and/or atomic war, perhaps a war with Islam and so on. In 1980, I would have laughed at the idea of the USSR collapsing in the 1989/91 period although I did wonder if I was right in 1983 where I figured that one day the US would be like the USSR and the USSR like the US.
29
posted on
12/21/2012 6:22:17 PM PST
by
Nowhere Man
(I miss you Whitey! (4-15-2001 - 10-12-2012). Take care, pretty girl!)
To: Lee N. Field
About the Orthodox and Catholic churches, I did see one interesting reference in an old cartoon made in the Soviet Union called “Christmas Toys” from 1924, being an animation junky I am. They referred to the Orthodox Church as “The Dead Church” and the Roman Catholic Church as “The Living Church.” You can find the cartoon on YouTube. I wonder where they got those terms from.
30
posted on
12/21/2012 6:35:01 PM PST
by
Nowhere Man
(I miss you Whitey! (4-15-2001 - 10-12-2012). Take care, pretty girl!)
To: SeekAndFind
What about Mormons? Disregarding for the moment whether they are Christians
31
posted on
12/21/2012 6:35:25 PM PST
by
steve86
(Acerbic by Nature, not Nurture™)
To: Fiji Hill; knarf
>>"For you know quite well that the day of the Lord's return will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night."--1 Thessalonians 5:2
Why do people always put that verse out there all alone? That is not conveying the meaning of that passage. Look at what follows it.
1 Thessalonians 5:1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. 2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. 3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. 4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
There is much in scripture that shows us the seasons to watch for so that it doesnt come upon us like a thief in the night. That is talking about the children of darkness, not the children of light. We who are Christians have the scripture to show us what to look for.
To: SeekAndFind
>>Interesting, is there a Biblical basis for this belief, or is it just your own feeling?<<
A Biblical basis. Study prophecy. Israel was brought back as a nation after nearly 2000 years in 1948. Thats no coincidence.
To: SeekAndFind
The big story of world religion over the next 50 years will be the flourishing of the Christian church in China. Fujian province is supposedly more than 20% Christian today, and growing amazingly fast. The rest of China is following. It is quite possible that China will be majority Christian within my lifetime, or at least my childrens’.
34
posted on
12/21/2012 7:02:55 PM PST
by
ccmay
(Too much Law; not enough Order.)
To: SeekAndFind
The big story of world religion over the next 50 years will be the flourishing of the Christian church in China. Fujian province is supposedly more than 20% Christian today, and growing amazingly fast. The rest of China is following. It is quite possible that China will be majority Christian within my lifetime, or at least my childrens’.
35
posted on
12/21/2012 7:03:01 PM PST
by
ccmay
(Too much Law; not enough Order.)
To: ccmay
RE: The big story of world religion over the next 50 years will be the flourishing of the Christian church in China. Fujian province is supposedly more than 20% Christian today, and growing amazingly fast.
The more relevant question is this — What FORM will this Chinese Christianity take? Will it be Catholic? Orthodox? Mainline Protestant? Evangelical? Will it hold to the essentials of the Christian faith? Will a more free-wheeling form appear?
THAT is the question.
To: SeekAndFind
There isn’t anything new under the sun.
To: CynicalBear
"After that there will be no denominations""Amen to that!
It's sad that it will take such a monumental event for the church to finally "be of one mind" still,better then than never I suppose!
38
posted on
12/21/2012 7:37:20 PM PST
by
mitch5501
("make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things ye shall never fall")
To: CynicalBear
Well, so far, those preachers like Harold Camping who tell us that we’re in the last days have been wrong 100% of the time.
39
posted on
12/21/2012 7:42:58 PM PST
by
Fiji Hill
(i)
To: CynicalBear
RE: Israel was brought back as a nation after nearly 2000 years in 1948. Thats no coincidence.
I still fail to see how that translates Biblically to Christ coming back on or before 2062.
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