{"id":119,"date":"2009-03-26T09:55:07","date_gmt":"2009-03-26T09:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/03\/evangelicals-in-retreat.html"},"modified":"2009-03-26T09:55:07","modified_gmt":"2009-03-26T09:55:07","slug":"evangelicals-in-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/03\/evangelicals-in-retreat.html","title":{"rendered":"Evangelicals in retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>That&#8217;s a softer title than the author used in a Christian Science Monitor opinion piece: &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/2009\/0310\/p09s01-coop.html\">The Coming Evangelical Collapse<\/a>.&#8221; I&#8217;m not sure how seriously to take the argument: the author is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.internetmonk.com\/michael-spencer-the-internet-monk\">a popular blogger<\/a> but not a scholar. There&#8217;s no data used or referenced in the article. The recent ARIS results (see <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/03\/slowly-becoming-less-christian.html\">my post from two days ago<\/a>) tells a similar story using data to document a secular trend affecting all religions rather by citing a litany of alleged Evangelical faults and failures.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, the article received considerable attention from blogs.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smartchristian.com\/?p=5703\">SmartChristian thinks the article<\/a> &#8220;provides significant points of reflection, truth, and points of discussion&#8221; and thinks the collapse &#8220;is already happening.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Adventures in Mormonism <a href=\"http:\/\/adventures-in-mormonism.com\/2009\/03\/10\/and-now-a-cautionary-lesson-from-the-evangelicals\/\">thinks the LDS Church has sidestepped these problems<\/a>, while noting a weakness that bloggers often display in such discussions: &#8220;My suspicion is that he is (consciously or not) overstating his case in order to conform with his own frustrations and expectations, something not unknown here in the Bloggernacle.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>16 Small Stones <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sixteensmallstones.org\/an-lds-opportunity-the-coming-evangelical-collapse\">calls the predicted collapse &#8220;an LDS opportunity.&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Mormon Metaphysics <a href=\"http:\/\/www.libertypages.com\/cgw\/2009\/03\/10\/the-coming-evangelical-collapse\/\">cautiously picks up on a theme I didn&#8217;t catch in the article<\/a>: &#8220;The bigger issue is the &#8216;content free religion&#8217; aspects some see in Evangelicalism. I&#8217;m not sure how fair those criticisms are.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That&#8217;s a softer title than the author used in a Christian Science Monitor opinion piece: &#8220;The Coming Evangelical Collapse.&#8221; I&#8217;m not sure how seriously to take the argument: the author is a popular blogger but not a scholar. There&#8217;s no data used or referenced in the article. The recent ARIS results (see my post from&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Evangelicals in retreat - Mormon Inquiry<\/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\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/03\/evangelicals-in-retreat.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Evangelicals in retreat - Mormon Inquiry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That&#8217;s a softer title than the author used in a Christian Science Monitor opinion piece: &#8220;The Coming Evangelical Collapse.&#8221; I&#8217;m not sure how seriously to take the argument: the author is a popular blogger but not a scholar. There&#8217;s no data used or referenced in the article. The recent ARIS results (see my post from&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/03\/evangelicals-in-retreat.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mormon Inquiry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-26T09:55:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dave Banack\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Evangelicals in retreat - Mormon Inquiry","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/03\/evangelicals-in-retreat.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Evangelicals in retreat - Mormon Inquiry","og_description":"That&#8217;s a softer title than the author used in a Christian Science Monitor opinion piece: &#8220;The Coming Evangelical Collapse.&#8221; I&#8217;m not sure how seriously to take the argument: the author is a popular blogger but not a scholar. 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