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The Coming Evangelical Collapse:  Are You Buying It?

Orginally published on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 9:05 AM
by Todd Rhoades


Michael Spencer (The Internet Monk) has created a ton of controversy with his recent article (featured in the Christian Science Monitor and at the Drudge Report) on the coming evangelical collapse. I wonder... are you buying his rationale? Here are his major points:

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism.

2. 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.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile.

4. 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.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up...

What will be left?  Spencer says, among other things:  Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

Read the whole article here. Then tell me what you think… Spot on or way off?

Todd


This post has been viewed 942 times so far.


  There are 13 Comments:

  • Posted by Eric Partin

    I think I saw that scenario played out in a movie once. It wasn’t Left Behind but I am pretty sure they used the song, “I Wish We’d all Been Ready.”
    ...Or maybe it was the video to the song “I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb.”
    Sorry, a little blurry.

  • Posted by

    Evangelicalism as a political block may wane in influence, but I seem to recall that God PROMISED to build his church. I see no biblical ecclesiology in this guy’s rant

  • Posted by Lex

    Amen, Dave.

    I agree with a lot of Monk’s points, but not his conclusion. Sounds to me like God is restoring the Church to what it was in the first century. There’s going to be a big learning curve as we get back to the basics, but it seems that a vibrant/healthy Church is usually a contested/persecuted one.

  • Posted by David Curtis

    While he gives us some food for thought, I think that much of what he is saying is based on assumptions not on fact.  Some of what he is saying may be true of individual evangelical churches, but I don’t think that it will be true of evangelicalism as a whole. 

    Concerning the political influence, many young evangelicals have begun to separate themselves from the staunch conservative politics of their parents generation.  They are moving away from James Dobson and Pat Robertson and are reading Donald Miller and Mark Driscoll.  I think the evangelical church will look quite different in the next 20 years but it will by no means be dead.

    To assume that young churches have a questionable future is a major assumption.  They may not have the financial backing of old established mainline churches, but these newer large churches in major cities are now driving the Christian culture in large part, I think.

    Yes some of the mega churches out of the church growth movement will plateau and struggle to pass on the leadership baton (i.e. Saddleback & Willow Creek), but as a movement evangelicalism is much bigger than its biggest churches.

    I will end with this thought.  Could it be that the future of the evangelical church will not even be in America?  What about a global perspective?  Is the church not growing more rapidly abroad than in the US?  I think his thoughts are very limited to the scope of evangelicalism in the US and is ignoring the growth and strength of the global evangelical movement.

  • Posted by

    @Dave he did promise to build his church, but he didn’t promise to build it here in the US, necessarily. Take the massive church growth in China, for example. So I don’t think an attack on his ecclesiology is warrented.

    That being said, I think I agree that something big (on the negative side) is going to have to Evangelicalism… in that it will have to become something else entirely, or it will have to change a lot. I disagree, however, with his sweeping generalizations for reasons on several points (his three kinds of church, for example). I think there is a different kind of faith emerging in the younger generation that does have a place in the this postmodern (or postpostmodern or whatever...) era. Many older evangelicals may not like it, but it is that way it is. I think it’s also very likely that the lines between protestant, orthodox, and catholic will become much more blurred too… which I think is a good think.

  • Posted by

    I believe that most of the points he hit were right on.  Lack of doctrine and orthodoxy, no Christian education, and models of only, “doing good,” are the big ones I see coming this way in American evangelicalism. 

    I also disagree with the three-church model he listed above, but not for the other reasons as the posters.  I see more like five different types of churches:

    1.  Purpose-driven, consumer-driven, seeker-sensitive megachurches.  (There were other adjectives I chose to omit from how else I would describe them, too.) Examples include Saddleback, Willow Creek, Lakewood.

    2.  Old churches that are dying out.  Examples include neighborhood churches where white hair and bald heads are the norm and the congregation dwindles over time.

    3.  Emergent, unorthodox, and Christian universalist churches.  Examples include Solomon’s Porch, Metropolitan churches, Mars Hill (Bell), and anywhere Tony Jones or Brian McLaren may go.

    4.  Home-based churches.  These are the ones where people cannot find good, Gospel-based preaching anywhere else, and take it home.

    5.  Home-based churches II.  These are the ones that get big enough to have their own building, possible denominational backing, and stick with the faith.  This, and other home-based ones are where evangelicalism will survive.

    --
    CS

  • Posted by Eric Frisch

    I don’t think it’s “spot on” per se, but I do think that he makes some excellent points, and I agree that these are issues the church will have to deal with.  As one of the “young people” that the article (and others here) have mentioned, I do see some different trends happening in my generation and the one after us.  To a large extent, I do think that “modern” evangelicalism has not connected with younger generations, and the church will look very different in the future because of it, for good or for bad.

  • Posted by

    yes, I agree. Actually I believe Evangelicalism MUST die.

    In particular the Church Growth model and the Emergent MOVEMENT. My gosh, why don’t the Emergent people just go to a Unitarian congregation already… it’s practically the same thing!

    The Church growth model requires MASSIVE amounts of

    A) Personality - The REAL “P” in PDC
    B) Money… light shows ain’t cheap !!
    C) Decaying Denominational churches nearby with congregants looking for a reason to leave.
    D) http://sermons.com/
    E) An educated white collar suburban demographic

    To say that you target the unchurched and then spend millions on a budget, with a HUGE chunk of that going to salaries. This is the exact hang-up that most “unchurched” people have in the first place, “They want my money so Pastor Bob can live good in the Burbs”. It’s laughable. Perhaps this is why most PDC/Seeker/ Church Growth Churches don’t actually attract many “seekers” just people who are bored with their old churches.

  • Posted by

    C.S.

    We are a church running around 500, have just started a new service and have baptized 30 new converts since January. 

    There are all kinds of churches that are not home-based or mega churches or dying out, but working as hard as they can by God’s power to reach the lost with Gospel and make solid disciples.  Doctrine is key.

    I can also point to 100’s of so-called mega churches that do not fit your description. Doctrine teaching, gospel preaching, community building churches who are multiplying themselves all over the country.

    Good grief people.  Let’s not forget that there are Pastor’s in this country doing their jobs.

  • Posted by

    Shawn:

    “I can also point to 100’s of so-called mega churches that do not fit your description. Doctrine teaching, gospel preaching, community building churches who are multiplying themselves all over the country.”

    I’d have to lump those, and yours, likely into my fifth category of churches.  Some can grow to huge sizes, following biblical standards, and maintain their adherence to the Gospel.  I can think of some megachurches, too, like John MacArthur’s and John Piper’s that have done well and teach doctrine and theology well.

    I’m not coming down on all megachurches, by the way.  Only those that follow the pragmatic, sex series, life change nonsense.

    --
    CS

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  • Posted by wow gold

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  • Are You Buying It?----No, i don’t buy it

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