The brand of Evangelicalism will collapse, and probably in the next five years. But the Catholic church is not going to weather the storm very well either. At best there will be a falling away, but more likely is an open schism. The biggest question IMO is who will blink first.
redgolum:
While the Catholic Church gets most of the press from secular media [that actually is a backhanded compliment from them], there are serious divisions within evangelical Protestant world. Like I noted, I use to read a blog by a Southern Baptist Evangelical who went by “internet monk” and he was writing about the growing “theological divisions within evangelicalism” and wrote an interesting article called “The coming evangelical collapse” In essence, he saw the growing divergence “theologically” in what was, or seemed to be a fairly united camp and pointed out how Mclaren’s and the emergent church movement, vs Rick Warren’s style of evangelisim vs. Piper/RS Sproul, just to name a few were all questioning each other as evangelicals. In the Baptist tradition [I live in the South] there is a growing Reformed movement within it that tends to challenge the more Arminian view that dominated which tends to focus on the “individual making a personal choice for Christ” which sort of does not fit the absolute Predestination model.
More recently, I noticed Protestant blogs really tearing in to eac other over Rob Bell’s book [Roger Olson’s Arminian blog, Scott McKnight’s Jesus Creed, Near Emmaues Blog] and the lines are being drawn. And this is precisely the point, who decides what is true evangelical protestantism, Rob Bell, Piper, Albert Mohler, R.C. Sproul, Mclaren, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, Ken Copeland, etc, etc, because the underlying principle of sola scriptura and the elevation of the priesthood of all believers such that each individual ultimately becomes the determiner of what is correct doctrine is why evangelical protestantism and all protestantism will always continue to fracture and nobody can authoritatively say which brand of evangelicalism is correct.
You talk about the Catholic Church and yes, theological liberals since Vatican II have been pushing liberation theology, watered down Liturgy but the tide is turning. But that sort of makes my point, these liberal type Catholics have been yelling and screaming since the 1970’s and unfortunately many dioceses were run by those types but the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI did not budge. The liberals yelled about Humanae Vitae in 1968 and what did John Paul II do in 1993, issue a stronger encyclical entitied “evangelium vitae” which again stressed the Catholic Church’s view on traditional marriage and sexuality, along with artificial contraception and strongly reiterated the Church teaching on abortion and euthanasia.
The liberals were yelling about women’s ordination. Ok, Pope John Paul says Checkmate and issued “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis” and firmly reminded our Liberal Catholic friends that ordination is reserved for men.
Liberals were yelling about Pope Benedict’s return to traditional Liturgy so not only did Rome not approve the first editions of the Roman Missal in english, Rome made sure that the english translations were more in line with the Latin so now “consubstantial with the Father” [the Latin version of homousious in the Nicene Creed] will now be said vs “one in being” which while not unorthodox, is an english term that individuals can use for ambiguity. And of course, the Pope issueing the “Summorum Pontificum” (English: Of the Supreme Pontiffs), an Apostolic Letter of Pope Benedict XVI, issued “motu proprio” (i.e. on his own initiative) that removed all restrictions on the Form of the Roman Rite celebrated before Vatican II has also pissed them off as did his “Anglicanorum Coebitus” where Pope Benedict XVI’s “Apostolic Constitution” in response to the petition of “groups of Anglicans” (translation of the Latin title) will allow groups of Anglicans to come into full communion with Rome and bring into it the Anglican form of the Liturgy which is also a Rite derived from The Roman family of Liturgies, that is the Anglican Rite in England is derived from the “Sarum Rite” which was the form of Roman Rite celebrated in England in the 12th to early 16th century before King Henry VIII broke from Rome.
So what does all of this show, well that those 81% who left because they want worship that fits their personal tastes and ideas of Liturgy/worship, ie. that is more creative is an indication that all of those are to some degree, theological liberals in that they have put “their own personal opinions” to the level of deciding what is orthodox Liturgy and worship. Even though some of these folks may have ended up in evangelical churches that may be conservative on abortion, euthansia, same-sex marriage, that 81% figure can’t be ignored as that is still a form of “theological liberalism/heterodoxy” no matter how you slice it.
So the schism you allude to has already happened, there are tons of Catholics who are indiviudal schismatics which is what has been going on. And open schism as you say, I doubt it as the Church has weathered the storms of history for over 2,000 years and it will whether the storm of the heresy of modernism where individuals decide for themselves, sort of like in politics, what they will vote to be true in matters of moral theology in some cases, or Liturgical theology and worship which is the dominate case in the article by the liberal Jesuit Reese in the National Catholic distorter as again evidenced by the 81% statistic.
If we are looking at who is going and who is coming, I will gladly take the leading academics and scholars that have come to Rome and the 100’s of traditional Anglican clergy that have been ordained in the US since 1980 and the group of Anglicans coming into Rome this Easter following the 4 Anglican Bishops that were ordained by in January,
who are now Fr.Andrew Burnham (Ebbsfleet), Msgr. Keith Newton (Richborough), Fr. John Broadhurst (Fulham), and Fr. Edwin Barnes (assistant bishop, Winchester).
These 4 former Anglican Bishops see Liturgy the way Pope Benedict sees it as someting that the Church received from the Apostles and Apostolic Tradition, they are staunch defenders of the Nicene Creed, etc and thus see Christianity and doctrine as well as Liturgy as something thta is fixed, constant, and can’t be arbitrarily messed with.
No, this Catholic likes where Pope Benedict, guided by the Holy Spirit of course, is leading Holy Mother Church.
Regards and Happy pascha/Easter to you.
Sum