{"id":4643,"date":"2009-03-16T00:09:34","date_gmt":"2009-03-16T00:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/will-evangelicalism-survive.html"},"modified":"2009-03-16T00:09:34","modified_gmt":"2009-03-16T00:09:34","slug":"will-evangelicalism-survive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/will-evangelicalism-survive.html","title":{"rendered":"Will Evangelicalism Survive?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Galli<\/a>, senior managing editor at Christianity Today<\/i>, has just responded to Michael Spencer’s (iMonk) colossal prediction of the imminent collapse of evangelicalism<\/a>. I’d like to shift this conversation a bit to two other questions to see if we might further the conversation a bit.<\/p>\n

\"Wheaton.jpg\"<\/span>Who are the evangelicals and what makes up an evangelical? (For Michael’s opening salvo, see below.)<\/p>\n

I’m confident Galli and I are on the same page here. David Bebbington’s book that details the four features of evangelicalism is the place to begin (see his The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon And Moody (History of Evangelicalism)<\/a>\"\"
\n<\/strong><\/em>).<\/p>\n

My question today is this: Do you foresee an imminent collapse of evangelicalism?<\/b><\/p>\n

Now on to the four features of an evangelical — and to one degree or another, all evangelicals are characterized by these four features:<\/p>\n


\n\"BG.jpg\"<\/span>First, all evangelicals are committed to the primacy of Scripture for shaping faith and practice. All Tradition, however respected, will have to answer to scriptural warrant. All Praxis will have to answer to scriptural warrant. This approach to faith and practice characterizes evangelicals.<\/p>\n

Second, all evangelicals are committed to the saving power of the cross. The cross, tied as it is both to the incarnation and to the resurrection, is the act of God that not only unmasks injustice but restores — via substitution — humans to God by dying our death.<\/p>\n

Third, all evangelicals are committed to new birth as a personal experience. Indeed, the necessity of new birth, of the need for life in the face of death. Evangelicals believe the Christian life begins with new birth, and it is here that most evangelicals tie the power of the Holy Spirit to the saving power of the cross (and resurrection). Evangelicals have always worried about the liturgical and liberal approaches to conversion through sacramental or nurturance processes.<\/p>\n

Fourth, all evangelicals are committed to an active Christian life that involves personal pieties like prayer and Bible reading, corporate fellowship like church attendance and participation, and social activism like justice efforts of all sorts, both locally and globally.<\/p>\n

These four are what it takes<\/i> to be an evangelical and all it takes<\/i> to be an evangelical. Nothing less, nothing more. Evangelicalism is orthodox and it is Protestant.<\/p>\n

Now to you: Do you see a collapse of these?<\/p>\n

Here’s how I see things: while I complain about the NeoReformed, I have no fear of the collapse of evangelicalism with that segment of evangelicalism. I do fear the theologically weak, intellectually vapid, and pragmatically oriented faces of many segments of evangelicalism. The efforts for coalition among evangelicals in the last fifty years have sometimes led to such a minimal common theological core that very little theology remains (for some).<\/i><\/p>\n

Here is Michael’s opening salvo:<\/p>\n

\n

I believe that we are on the verge- within 10 years- of a major
\ncollapse of evangelical Christianity; a collapse that will follow the
\ndeterioration of the mainline Protestant world and that will
\nfundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.
\nI believe this evangelical collapse will happen with astonishing
\nstatistical speed; that within two generations of where we are now
\nevangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its current occupants,
\nleaving in its wake nothing that can revitalize evangelicals to their
\nformer “glory.”<\/p>\n

The party is almost over for evangelicals; a party that’s been going
\nstrong since the beginning of the “Protestant” 20th century. We are
\nsoon going to be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic
\n21st century in a culture that will be between 25-30% non-religious.<\/span><\/p>\n

This collapse, will, I believe, herald the arrival of an
\nanti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian west and will change the
\nway tens of millions of people see the entire realm of religion.
\nIntolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not
\nbelieved possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become
\nparticularly hostile towards evangelical Christianity, increasingly
\nseeing it as the opponent of the good of individuals and society.<\/p>\n

The response of evangelicals to this new environment will be a
\nrevisiting of the same rhetoric and reactions we’ve seen since the
\nbeginnings of the current culture war in the 1980s. The difference will
\nbe that millions of evangelicals will quit: quit their churches, quit
\ntheir adherence to evangelical distinctives and quit resisting the
\nrising tide of the culture.<\/p>\n

Many who will leave evangelicalism will leave for no religious
\naffiliation at all. Others will leave for an atheistic or agnostic
\nsecularism, with a strong personal rejection of Christian belief and
\nChristian influence. Many of our children and grandchildren are going
\nto abandon ship, and many will do so saying “good riddance.”<\/p>\n

This collapse will cause the end of thousands of ministries. The
\nhigh profile of Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated.
\nHundreds of thousands of students, pastors, religious workers,
\nmissionaries and persons employed by ministries and churches will be
\nunemployed or employed elsewhere. [ ]. Visible, active evangelical
\nministries will be reduced to a small percentage of their current size
\nand effort.<\/p>\n

Nothing will reanimate evangelicalism to its previous levels of size
\nand influence. The end of evangelicalism as we know it is close; far
\ncloser than most of us will admit.<\/p>\n

My prediction has nothing to do with a loss of eschatological
\noptimism. Far from it. I’m convinced the grace and mission of God will
\nreach to the ends of the earth. But I am not optimistic about
\nevangelicalism, and I do not believe any of the apparently lively forms
\nof evangelicalism today are going to be the answer. In fact, one
\ndimension of this collapse, as I will deal with in the next post, is
\nthe bizarre scenario of what will remain when evangelicals have gone
\ninto decline.<\/p>\n

I fully expect that my children, before they are 40, will see
\nevangelicalism at far less than half its current size and rapidly
\ndeclining. They will see a very, very different culture as far as
\nevangelicalism is concerned.<\/p>\n

I hope someone is going to start preparing for what is going to be an evangelical dark age.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Galli, senior managing editor at Christianity Today, has just responded to Michael Spencer’s (iMonk) colossal prediction of the imminent collapse of evangelicalism. I’d like to shift this conversation a bit to two other questions to see if we might further the conversation a bit. Who are the evangelicals and what makes up an evangelical?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism"],"yoast_head":"\nWill Evangelicalism Survive? - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2009\/03\/will-evangelicalism-survive.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Will Evangelicalism Survive? - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mark Galli, senior managing editor at Christianity Today, has just responded to Michael Spencer’s (iMonk) colossal prediction of the imminent collapse of evangelicalism. 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