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 . . .

SHRED - "Snobs Hate Red Envelope Day"

The Internet Monk posted criticism of the Facebook phenom "Red Envelope Day."

RED was started by Matt Stokes. Matt wants people to send a red envelope to President Obama saying, "This envelope represents one child who died because of an abortion. It is empty because the life that was taken is now unable to be a part of our world."

Simple enough. One more petition for me not to be involved in.

Matt will take no offense, however, as even he admits that in one sense, it's a "useless" activity, i.e. no laws are going to change as a result. We all know that. Matt smartly encourages more substantial efforts such as supporting adoption and crisis pregnancy shelters. Well and fine.

IMonk takes a different tact: he thinks there is something wrong with participating in RED. Or, more accurately, something wrong with Evangelical-dom:

"This is a perfect representation of where evangelical Christians are in about every area I can think of: theologically, missiologically, ecclesiastically, culturally, politically. It’s perfect."

Not only that, it's a McCarthy-esque plot to single out the "real Christians" from the fake:

"It’s this kind of meaningless symbolism that causes division and argument for no reason. The whole plan is an artificial loyalty test."

Wow. Did this guy have some sort of traumatic experience with a stack of petitions back in the day? There is nothing "theologically, missiologically, ecclesiastically, culturally, or politically" problematic with this petition. It's a petition for crying out loud. Sort of like sending a letter to your Congressman or writing a letter to the editor, or posting on IMonk's blog. Making your opinions known is the American way, after all. And obviously the petition is not a Christian "loyalty test," although it might double for a snob test depending on how much you doth protest when asked to participate in RED. (For example, I register as a "2" on the snob factor scale, and IMonk peaks at about "6.8").

Btw, if you post on IMonk, be advised that the words "sucks" and "jerk" are acceptable (based on what I've seen in other posts), but if you use the term "snob" or "stupid petition" (like I did) IMonk will actually edit your comments in such a way as to possibly lead people to believe that you cursed a blue streak and that the all-seeing "moderator" was forced to "edit" them. (That's pure genius, btw. I love it and plan to use it on my critics, assuming someone ever posts to this blog).

I, on the other hand, fully welcome any sort of mild put-downs here (esp. if they are directed to my critics).