Posted on 03/11/2009 6:47:32 AM PDT by raynearhood
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.
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Why is this going to happen?
...
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Very interesting article.
This author is not exactly an unbiased observer. He has his own blog, called “NetMonk” or some such. He’s Catholic.
I feel sorry for kids for having to take what’s shoveled at them in the name of religious training. All feelings and emotion and no emphasis on scholarship and learning to search the scriptures for themselves. Kids are smarter than many adults seem to think.
Yeah, but I was pinged to this article through a “Reformed” Baptist blog that I frequent. Agree or disagree with his assessment of the “impending changes” (i.e.- benefit to the Catholic and Orthodox communions) his analysis of the failings of the American Evangelical movement is just about spot-on, I think.
I think I read about how this was supposed to happen 10 years ago, too.
So, let’s see. You want me to seriously consider an article critical of evangelical Chrisitanity from a source that is a cult, critical of evangelical Christianity?
Odd statement, considering that these churches are actually growing. To give some examples, my church (which fits this category) is growing slowly but steadily, even though we're in liberal Orange Co. NC. The daughter church we started in Northern Wake Co. is flourishing, and a church we fellowship with up in a very liberal part of Maine that was planted just a few years ago has also seen exceptional growth. Most of this growth is from new converts, not "personnel shifting."
It's interesting, but there are many, many doctrinally strong fundamental churches in the North - Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine - they're all over, and continue to spread.
What I think is really sad, too, is the lack of learning in the leadership of alot of the Evangelical churches. Eldership that can’t defend why they believe what they believe Scripturally. Nothing to grasp hold of other than “that’s the way it is,” or “God wants us to...” Ask them where they find these “doctrines” in Scripture and the best they can tell you is, “We learned it during a study we did on the Power of .....”
Recently I was in an exchange with an elder at my church that went this way.
Bunk. Home churches are springing up where I live. The main protestant denominations have left Biblical interpretation and they are responsible for home churches growing. Evangelicals are simply moving away from denominations.
Ping for later
I think the expression he chose ("aggressively evangelistic") is a misnomer. I gather he is talking about high-pressure bus-ministry-driven count-the-heads sunday-school ministries.I think that is a fair assessment of what the article's author was saying.
As I said, I think what he "predicts" is already a fait accompli. In the early '70s, nine of the ten largest churches in America were that style of church. Today, I'd guess that none of the 50 biggest churches would fall in that category. Some of the super-aggressive numbers-oriented churches that dominated the fundamentalist landscape 35 years ago have dwindled to nearly nothing, and the movement itself is in serious decline.
If you want quantifiable evidence of the decline he is describing, check the enrollment trends over the past 40 years at, say, Tennessee Temple.
The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ is more powerful than what any one man can presume.
A blog written by a Catholic doesn't make it "from the Church". He's simply making an observation, which is quite valid.
A personal relationship with Christ is not bound by doctrine, but if it's based heavily on emotions, then it is like seed planted on rocky ground. There's a certain amount of knowledge and discipline that is mandatory to maintain that relationship with HIM. And are we passing that on to our kids? Or do we go to church IF we didn't stay up too late on Saturday night? Do we show and teach our kids that God made us to KNOW Him, to LOVE Him, and to SERVE Him in this world and be happy with Him in the next? You can't truly love Him unless you know Him. And that requires at basic biblical and doctrinal learning, in the least.
The author is confusing protestants and evangelicals.
No, we’re aready well into a mainstream PROTESTANT collapse. The major protestant denomiantions (Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Luthern, etc...) have been shrinking for a long time due to straying from the Bible.
Those Bible-thumping, fundamentalists evangelicals that insist that the Bible is actually the word of God and should be followed are doing just fine.
Evangelical is a nice way of saying fundamentalist. NONE of the major protestant denominations are evangelical/fundamentalist.
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You are right that there are evangelical Catholics.
The term evangelical really means someone that holds tightly to doctrine. It came into use because the term religious fundamentalist had become associated with extremist, but that is essentally what it means. Fundamentalist.
The term evangelical has been associated with non-Catholics, but it isn’t limited to them. You can have a evangelical (fundamentalist) Catholic and a evangelical (fundamentlist) non-Catholic.
You don't? Too bad. Protestant churches are committing suicide.
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