[Ed Dantes]

This guy says the Age of the Evangelicals is coming to a close. It's a long article and a good read.

I will issue a point-by-point refutation at my earliest convenience.

The coming evangelical collapse
An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise.
By Michael Spencer

from the March 10, 2009 edition

Oneida, Ky. - We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html

[LUconn]

He goes from "within 10 years" to "within 2 generations". How many "evangelicals" were there 2 generations before this one?

[4everfsu]

What a maroon!

[thepostman]

haven't people been saying this off and on for the past 25 years?? I say that, because I am 25 and can't remember a time somebody didn't think this

[SumItUp]

This is a good piece. I agree with much of what he said. I hope to have time to post something about it today.

[Ed Dantes]

This is a good piece. I agree with much of what he said. I hope to have time to post something about it today.

I agree with you. I don't think he's completely off-base, I just think his conclusions are wrong.

[phoenix]

You get a better perspective on what he's saying if you've been following his blog. He's been saying things like this for some time -- when I read the title of the thread, he was the first person I thought of, and I haven't read the CSM article yet.

He's right on many issues, and he's wrong a lot -- I think that his background, and his reaction to it, tends to color what he sees coming. He sees a lot of things that he wants to go away, or change, so he figures out how they will go away or change. I empathize with him a lot, because our backgrounds are similar (though I haven't wandered quite as far as he has).

[Sly Fox]

My first though upon reading it was consider the course. I do not agree with his conclusions but much of what he states about the problems in the Evangelical community have a great deal of merit.

I am moving this from the Courtyard to the more appropriate Chapel forum.

[ALUmnus]

Maybe this can contribute to the conversation (or not, I haven't read the CS article yet)...
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php

[Sly Fox]

Ed Stetzer weighs in on his blog.

He write the following in response to the Out of Ur Blog:

I would add that this study is a well done project that should be disturbing to the church. Thanks for highlighting both the ARIS and the CSM article.

But, it is important to note that although iMonk provided an articulate and provocative case in his CSM essay, the ARIS study actually showed an INCREASE in the number of self-identified evangelicals, with a simultaneous decline in self-identified Christians.

So, the study shows the percentage of self-identified Christians is in decline but that is not the same thing as a great crackup of evangelicals. That may indeed be coming (and I have written on that myself), but the ARIS did not show such a trend.

[phoenix]

The problem is not that there's too much conservatism: it's that there's a lot of unfounded, flabby conservatism running around with plastic fishes attached to it rather than a robust, young, and dangerous conservatism riding around on the fat, noisy Harley which is the Gospel.

From Frank Turk at the Pyromaniacs blog. Pretty well sums it up for me; I think Spenser is right that there is a problem in evangelicalism, but he spends a lot of time focusing on things that aren't really THE problem; they're symptoms of the bigger problem. We're like mechanics who keep fixing the same problem with the car, and never stop to find out why that part keeps breaking (not that this has happened to me recently or anything).

[ALUmnus]

Yet another take on the article. Man, Spencer really set things off with this one.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/200 ... -31.0.html

[phoenix]

I'm not sure that he knew what he was going to spark with that article, but he's probably loving it. He hasn't been the subject of this much controversy in a long time.

[grm]

We know what the Tribulation will bring, and most feel like things will get worse leading up to the Trib. We don't know when or how bad - but tough times have to be coming, and I would say "coming soon." No need to despair however, just need to be strong and keep on keepin' on. I'm already a proud member of a group that is considered "out of touch" with the times, so- I guess I worry more about the quality of life of my grandkids than I do my own.

(All this figuring that a turn-away-time is coming, and that a turn-away-from-the-Gospel means Christians being disliked/hated/despised.)

[rueful]

Not just the end of Evanelicalism, but also is the end of America as a super power coming? I mean, were not anywhere to be seen in revelation, so is it possible we arent the center of the world anymore when that happens?

[grm]

I say it is possible, although I certainly find the thought distasteful.

[Ed Dantes]

We know what the Tribulation will bring

Really?

[grm]

I don't mean day-by-day, specific event-by specific event knowing, but in terms of the report that was mentioned, we can say that the Tribulation will bring... tribulation. I said that in terms of things ultimately getting worse rather than better,
in response to what the author had written about "bad times."

He wrote,
"This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good."

In that sense, we do know what the tribulation will bring.

[grm]

In looking back at what I wrote, I would like to add a note or two.

It is probably (and correctly) assumed that I believe completely in a pre-tribulation rapture, and therefore, Christians would not enter the Tribulation. However, there must be some gospel somewhere, God has not closed out His program - someone picking up a Bible or listening to old tapes, or remembering a sermon he once heard, and there are the two witnesses in Rev. 11. With the rise of the Satanic Trinity in Rev. 13, we can say that Satan is hard at work to make this an anti-Christian period. I also believe there is taking place right now a "falling away" leading up to the Tribulation (2 Thessalonians 2:3 "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;").

I'm saying that I'm not surprised when I see the world heading in the direction it is, and I believe this particular day in which we live is a pretty bad time in the history of the world in terms of the world's rejection of God's Word.