Evangelicalism No More - Mark Your Calendars

The Internet Monk has written on the coming Evangelical collapse. Ten years from now. I've already put it on my Outlook . . .

Executive summary: lots of doom and gloom with some rainbows.

"Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake." He says this "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. "

Not really. First of all, it's fair to say that the culture war was brought to them. Evangelicals had a few choices: do nothing, bow to peer pressure and reject Biblical teachings on life and sexuality, or take a stand. This "either-or" false dichotomy is raising its head once again, as if one can't be politically informed and engaged while true to the faith. Do you know of any conservative Evangelicals who can't articulate the Gospel anymore? I don't either. (I certainly hope your average Evangelical can do a lot more than that, btw).

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.

Well, maybe it is accurate, but I'm not up on the studies of where our young Evangelicals are at theologically, etc. . . . Any studies to confirm this? Barna, maybe . . .

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.

Is that really the purpose of Christian education? To stop "secularism" in America? Because I spend a lot of money each month on Christian education, and frankly, I don't care what some yahoo in Vermont thinks about God when I see these direct debits every month. The goal of Christian education should be to support and compliment a parent's existing commitment to teach their children that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and to demonstrate that spiritual faith and intellectual knowledge compliment one another, as opposed to being mutually incompatible. If that ends up affecting the overall culture, great - welcome side effect, but not the purpose.

He says that he hopes the changes will remove the "prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ."

I agree that it is a parasite that should be removed, but I think the health and wealth Gospel has been aptly condemned withing mainstream Evangelical-dom, so I think he overstates the problem. Hank Hanegraaff has been beating the drum on this for years.

Some of his interesting points:

Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion?


Short answer: if they aren't doing it now, I wouldn't be too optimistic about the future.


The loss of their political clout may impel many Evangelicals to reconsider the wisdom of trying to create a "godly society." That doesn't mean they'll focus solely on saving souls, but the increasing concern will be how to keep secularism out of church, not stop it altogether.

There is something to be said for focusing on the church's vices vice the culture's (I Corinthians 5).

"I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement."

Any studies on modern house church movements? I imagine it is pretty strong in China and similiar countries where freedom of religion is not so free. There is a growing movement in the US. I think in some ways people are drawn to it thinking that "oh, we are just going back to the simplicity of the N.T. days" etc. I wonder if it was really that simple. The grass is always greener, as they say . . .