DownloadJune 22, 2009 issue
An evangelical collapse?
By John LonghurstPage:
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Is the evangelical movement in the United States about to collapse? In a much-debated article, “The Coming Evangelical Collapse,” in The Christian Science Monitor, Michael Spencer says yes.
John Longhurst, of Winnipeg, Man., is a columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press and a member of River East Mennonite Brethren
Church.
Spencer — who bills himself as “a post-evangelical reformation Christian in search of a Jesus-shaped spirituality” — offers up a number of reasons why U.S. evangelicalism is doomed.
He thinks one reason is that American evangelicals have identified with political conservatism. This, he says, has proven to be “a very costly mistake… . The evangelical investment in moral, social and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses… . We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.”
Another reason is that, despite investing heavily in Christian colleges and spending billions “on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing and media,” evangelicals have failed to pass faith on to their youth.
Instead, these efforts have “produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it,” he says. “Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.”
Yet Spencer doesn’t see an evangelical collapse as a bad thing. “Evangelicalism doesn’t need a bailout,” he writes. “Much of it needs a funeral.”
In particular, he believes the loss of “marginal” Christians could be a good thing if it forces churches to “begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership.”
It would also be good if the crisis changes the conversation “from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate ones,” he says.
The loss of political clout might also cause American evangelicals to “reconsider the wisdom of trying to create a ‘godly society’,” he adds, and instead focus on being a “countercultural movement with a message of ‘empire subversion’ ” that will increasingly replace a message of cultural and political entitlement.
“In the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born,” he concludes.
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