The coming evangelical collapse

The coming evangelical collapse

www.csmonitor.com

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.

Why is this going to happen?

(visit the link for the full news article)

The article goes on to enunciate 7 points that according to the author will lead to said collapse:

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake.

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.

www.csmonitor.com...

He then goes on to describe a post evangelical world.

This is an interesting article but I have to disagree with him on the idea that the collapse of evangelical Christianity would lead to an anti-Christian backlash.

It could happen if the most extreme of the fundamentalists follow the path of... say the Islamic Brotherhood and the most extreme of the Muslim fundamentalists by isolating themselves and then begin waging a "holy" war against the secular society.

BUT as far as I can tell what's more likely is that we will see the emergence of a post religious form of Christianity in which the teachings, morality, spirituality and ethics of Jesus the Christ will return to being the focus of protestant Christianity as opposed to dogmatic purity... i.e. a Christianity without the organized religion.

If that happens we could see the emergence of a non-sectarian... non-dogmatic form of Christianity that more resembles the more private practices such as Buddhism...

... which from my perspective would be a good thing... indeed I think this is the path you will see all of the major religions including Islam over the next century.


www.csmonitor.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I think good ridance is a proper respose.

LOL If a christian thumps a bible no one is around to hear it does your magical god still exist?

reply to post by Wertdagf


I can't say good riddance.

While I am not an evangelic by any stretch of the imagination nor am I an atheist. I follow a path that strives to find the essential spiritual truths in all religions.

Organized religion is what the followers do to the teachings of the master once they realize how hard they are to live up to.

To return to a Christianity that is practiced by a private life of the spirit would be a good thing... same is true of both Islam and Judaism as well.

when you write lies and promote fairy tales as truth... what do you expect? Who goes to a liar for advice? Sounds reasonable to me.

reply to post by Salt of the Earth


Can the anti-Jewish Zionist crap will ya, its just a bunch of bullhooey... and racist to boot.

I have no use for such nonsense... the next thing you will be hauling out the protcols of zion as proof.

I'm not a Christian by any means and I have a different belief entirely, however I wouldn't want to see Christianity per se collapse and disappear.

Yet, at the same time, I'd quite happily see the evangelical aspect of it vanish from the face of the earth. I know it's an important part of some people's faith, but it's also the part of the faith that tends to cause the most trouble too.

Think of all the threads on ATS that have tried to deal with this very topic: 'I have no beef with Christianity, but it's the way it's rammed down people's throats' type threads and posts.

How often do you get Muslims or Hindus using a post in order to tenuously shoe-horn a religious message into a thread? Yet, this happens everyday on this forum with Christians using any excuse to spread their message. Again, I understand it's what some Christians are obliged to do and more importantly I respect the right for Christians to hold their beliefs in the same way that I'd hope it would be reciprocated (as opposed to being told I'm going to burn for all eternity) but without the evangelical aspect, I'm pretty sure there'd be a lot less friction on here and in the outside world too.

If only it were as easy as this article makes it out to be.

As if Christianity would do us such a favor as to simply fade away without a struggle. No, I highly doubt the Christians are going anywhere.


The ultimate truth is,
Some people simply can't function without something to believe in...
they just can't face the fact that there is no ultimate plan for them,
that they're no more special than the ant they just stepped on,
and that they too will cease to exist one day.

Some people need a fairytale to act as a cushion between them and reality.


And besides, what fun would the world be if they weren't around to torment?
... if we couldn't repeatedly throw bits of reality at their cushions and watch them flinch?

All there would be left to do is... make peace.

The King is dead. Long live the King!

(And His people.)

Many an empire has sought to crush the church, from Rome to the Soviet Union. But it can't be done. It's not a human organization.

"I will build My Church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it."

Jesus Christ, Author and Instigator of Creation, and Head of the Church

Oh how we can only hope in good conscience the right-wing bible thumpers vanish without a trace, alas I'm not holding my breath.

They're as deeply rooted in American culture and American legal code and politics as the English language is.

I mean the country was founded on the very ideals these people espouse, it'd be like trying to remove the electrons from an atom.

They're so tightly integrated into the fabric of American society I really can't see it happening any time soon.

[edit on 22/3/09 by The Godfather of Conspira]

I agree as well. Religions, in general, are good for nothing what so ever. They promote hate, violence, and even genocide. I'm glad this trend is starting to disappear. People put on this self righteous mask and talk down to others in an attempt to scare them into subscribing to what they believe.

I doubt it, but I hope in my lifetime I will see a world without religion. Where not just Christianity but other religions are nothing but a bad memory. We'll all look back and laugh at how ridiculous all of it was. Then we only need to conquer politics and it'll be smooth sailing to a peaceful existence. lol

reply to post by grover



As sort of a halfassed futurist, I actually see a resurgence of evangelicalism and even extreme cultlike evangelical off shoots.

As the economy gets worse, the social fabric shreds and fear and insecurity predominate the American Psyche; people will seek solace
in the supernatural ala churches of all types. Charismatic preachers will have a field day.

God help us!!!

What a shame the the vast majority of christians are not evangelical, at least not the bible thumping variety. I have little, to no, use for most organized religion. But that's me. If people want there religion with all the trappings and trimmings, hey that's their business, and they are more than welcome to it.

Like all movements, religion is cyclical...what's popular today isn't tommorrow. Doesn't neccesarily mean it's doomed to death.

Religions in general are a search for ultimate truth. Religion doesn't promote war, or genocide or any of the other complaints against it. Only the men and women within the religion do that. As with a wheat harvest, you have chaff amongst the grains. Grains are truth, you discard the rest...None of them are intrinicly evil, they are what the people within them are, nothing more, nothing less.

Do away with religion, you'll still have all the conflict, just differing reasons for it. Nothing will have changed. Yet, religion, or the people in it, have been saints as well as sinners. Those of you who would have religion done away with, would do well to remember the good as well as the bad.

"Evangelical" is a vague term that covers a lot of ground.

The religious right may be facing a demographic disaster, but I think "Evangelicals" are increasingly moving away from that category anyway.

People tend to confuse "Evangelical" with "fundamentalist" but that's not true, Barack Obama, for instance, is an Evangelical, the UCC is considered an Evangelical denomination IIRC.

It wont take 2 generations. The G20 is planning a one world government. There will be a Gobal dicator. One monerery system, one religion.

This is in fact true. Bible bashers will probably try to debunk the Bible. When SHTF and global martial law in full force people wont be leaving their home much.

A church wont accept the NWO and be persecuted and labled terrorists or anti-government protesters. They plan to round them all up. The same thing happened to the Jews.

Please don’t bash my Bible beliefs. You will live to see the day. Some have gone so far, as to call me weak for believing in God and my reply to them was, that I am a gun slinging female warrior. I doubt that fits the criteria for being weak.

The reason this will happen, you ask is it is Bible prophecy. Just like the global economic collapse, Wars, frequency of natural disasters, manmade disasters, and a change in the weather. It’s not an odd coincidence.

I’m curious what opinions others have for “Why will this happen” Looks like I’ve now made the red list. I am not worried though.

Maybe all the evangelicals/Protestants will actually disappear in thin air. Of course they would blame this on Aliens and require every citizen on the globe to receive a veri-chip ID implant on their right hand or forehead.

I don’t force my beliefs on others, however many force theirs to me.

So according to this article, rationality will prevail over faith? I wish this theory good luck because faith
is so much easier than rationality ...and people tend to be lazy sometime.

reply to post by wonderworld


If they are scheming for a one world government... I wish they'd get their act together.

But back to the subject at hand... you do not need religion to be moral, ethical or spiritual... indeed often times organized religion simply gets in the way of a soul in search of that ineffable ground of being we call God.

[edit on 22-3-2009 by grover]

Originally posted by johnsky
As if Christianity would do us such a favor as to simply fade away without a struggle. No, I highly doubt the Christians are going anywhere.

I hope not, but I see this happening also and it is Biblical they will implode

The ultimate truth is,
Some people simply can't function without something to believe in...
they just can't face the fact that there is no ultimate plan for them,
that they're no more special than the ant they just stepped on,

That is the "Ultimate truth" hehe ok if the Ultimate truth is we are no more important than an ant we don't think twice about stepping on, I see that argument about Atheists lacking morality having no thought of killing people as Lennin and Stalin and anywhere else Statism's tenets of athesism have existed.

And besides, what fun would the world be if they weren't around to torment?

Your intentions have been noted:

All there would be left to do is... make peace.

and THAT isn't any fun according to you.

What a GUY!

Originally posted by seagull
What a shame the the vast majority of christians are not evangelical, at least not the bible thumping variety. I have little, to no, use for most organized religion. But that's me. If people want there religion with all the trappings and trimmings, hey that's their business, and they are more than welcome to it.

Like all movements, religion is cyclical...what's popular today isn't tommorrow. Doesn't neccesarily mean it's doomed to death.

Religions in general are a search for ultimate truth. Religion doesn't promote war, or genocide or any of the other complaints against it. Only the men and women within the religion do that. As with a wheat harvest, you have chaff amongst the grains. Grains are truth, you discard the rest...None of them are intrinicly evil, they are what the people within them are, nothing more, nothing less.

Do away with religion, you'll still have all the conflict, just differing reasons for it. Nothing will have changed. Yet, religion, or the people in it, have been saints as well as sinners. Those of you who would have religion done away with, would do well to remember the good as well as the bad.

To all of you who are against faith seeing it as irrational and unreasoned blind obedience, you do not know what faith is or how it is faith is substantiated by the confidence in what it s one has faith in.

For those of you who talk about rationality, I give you seagulls post as a prime example. I wish their were more with such avanced souls as this Mod suggests he has to me.