Goodbye, Evangelicalism?

Christiany Today’s blog, Out of Ur, has an interesting post entitled Goodbye, Evangelicalism.

The post is in response to articles by USA Today and the Christian Science Monitor.

From the USA Today Article:

The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation.

“More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, ‘I’m everything. I’m nothing. I believe in myself,’ ” says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.

Kosmin concluded from the 1990 data that many saw God as a “personal hobby,” and that the USA is “a greenhouse for spiritual sprouts.”

Today, he says, “religion has become more like a fashion statement, not a deep personal commitment for many.”

So in a nutshell, people are becoming more “postmodern” and more morally relative. Not too surprising when you consider how much freedom we are given by God to make our own choices, and how often our message is either miscommunicated or ignored by the church itself. Without the message of home, love, and justice, there’s really no motivation for someone to follow a religion, as it becomes a restrictive hobby instead.

Haynes, like 69% of Americans, said in the ARIS survey that he believes there is “definitely a personal God.” He calls himself a deeply committed “follower of Christ,” rather than aligning with a specific denomination. He attends a non-denominational community church where he likes the rock music, but Bible study is the focus of his faith.

“We just look to Jesus,” he says. “That’s why I don’t pay attention to surveys. Christianity is moving totally under the radar. It’s the work of God. It can’t be measured. It happens inside of people’s souls.”

From the CSM Article:

A chilling opener:

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.

And more cheery predictions:

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.

The causes?

1…We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

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. Ironically, the billions of dollars we’ve spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it

#1: see the Screwtape Letters. It’s a work of fiction by C. S. Lewis. In it, a demon asks his uncle for advice on how to trip Christians up. One of the easiest was to get them so focused on politics that they lose focus on God.

#2: This is the biggest failing of the Christian community in my mind.

When I was a youth pastor, my main focus was not go bring huge numbers in, but to take the kids we had, and disciple them. This means teaching them to not just believe in God, but exactly what we believe in, and why we should believe in it, in addition to responses to the common humanistic arguments they will encounter. The problem is, many youth ministries have become kind of an after-school club where kids come to play games, eat food, and go back home. Not much life-changing there.

It is disturbing how many parents fail to live out their faith in front of their children, and then wonder why their precious little angel is all of the sudden rude, mean and insufferable as a teenager with no desire to follow in the faith.

If we don’t disciple people, meet their needs, and show them the way, then of course we’re going to shrink.