This reflection is a response to “The Coming Evangelical Collapse“
by Michael Spencer published in The Christian Science Monitor (March 10 2009)
I have for years believed that American Evangelicalism (not Christianity) was skating on thin ice, spiritually and intellectually. As a movement we (not all of us individually) have suffered from a host of problems that began generations ago, as early as the origin of the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century.
We have viewed Christianity individualistically—“am I right with God?” (not that this is unimportant). And in so doing have privatized the faith and have lost in large measure the larger vision of the redemption not just of individuals but society and the world.
While Christianity was founded in America by those of Puritan stock who had a high regard for scholarship and the intellectual study of both theology and creation, the heirs of the Second Great Awakening have exchanged intellect for feeling in exactly the same way as did the developing liberalism. When Pentecostalism came on the scene beginning in 1906, it pushed the envelope of anti-intellectualism to the point that you had to “check your brains as the door” when you entered church. To this day as a tradition, it still decries formal study and questioning as damaging to faith.
In the late nineteenth century and continuing through the 20th century we have withdrawn from American society which was founded on Christian/biblical ideals and principles (although many of the founding fathers were either deists or unorthodox they still shared a Christian worldview) and turned the seats of power over to secularism.
The Enlightenment, (c. 1650- 1800) made reason as opposed to divine revelation the final arbiter of truth. Through the 19th century, this assumption increasingly transformed all Western society. By the early 20th century, this presupposition was seen not only in society but also in a large part of the Church. Fundamentalism arose in opposition to this shift. The Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies of the first three decades of the twentieth century saw mainstream denominations capitulate to the zeitgeist (spirit of the age) and abandon their historic orthodox moorings with reference to the sinfulness of man, and the person and work of Christ. and even God as trinity. From a cultural perspective, the Scopes Trial (1925) served to nail the lid on the coffin of historic conservative Protestant Christianity in America.
In the wake of this defeat, the Fundamentalists withdrew from society as a whole and became inwardly focused, anti-intellectual, and other worldly–focusing on the imminent expectation of the rapture and using this as an excuse not to act as salt and light in society, claiming that to do so was like polishing brass on a sinking ship (“It’s all going to burn anyway”).
Modern evangelicalism was born in the late 1940’s when Carl Henry published The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. Henry advocated a departure from the “Come out from among them” mentality of fundamentalism and a re-engagement with culture and the life of the mind. At that time in our history, the term “American Evangelical Scholar” was an oxymoron. To be an Evangelical was to be anti-intellectual. On an intellectual level, this re-engagement has met with considerable success. Although it took about a half a century, true Evangelical Scholarship is now a reality.
However, on the popular level the engagement with culture has been something close to disaster.Theologically and intellectually unequipped to deal with the change in worldview, Evangelicalism capitulated to cultural values and lost its distinction from “the world.” It adopted the very same type of political aspirations and tactics that a generation previously it had decried in Liberal Christianity. Evangelicalism identified itself with conservative (largely Republican) politics and became just another special interest group on the horizon that wanted a seat at the political table.
Over the past two generations, we have become so immersed in our national culture that our lifestyle is indistinguishable from that of the non-Christian and secular society. The divorce rate among Evangelicals in the country is at a level that corresponds to that of society as a whole. In the Bible Belt, it is even greater than the divorce rate of the surrounding culture.
We as a movement decry abortion, yet about 40% of the abortions performed in the US are performed on self-proclaimed evangelical women. It is easier for these women to commit what they believe to be murder than to live with the shame and ostracism of the community that was supposed to love them. We, as a group, have lost our moral authority to speak on this issue.
The ethical reputation of evangelicals in business is so notorious as to make the term Evangelical Ethics an oxymoron. Many Christians let alone non-Christians will not do business with those who make public their evangelical commitment.
Twenty years ago when I was on the Student Life committee at a small Christian College we saw the same behavior among our students (promiscuity, abortion, alcohol abuse and drug abuse and homosexuality) that was prevalent among the broader society. (This was one of the school’s dirty little secrets that it tried not to let be known to the constituency for fear of harm to the college’s image.) What I saw was that in many cases parents who had failed to pass on the faith to their children sent them to a Christian college to make up for their failure.
In 1986 Francis Schaeffer published The Great Evangelical Disaster, addressing the question of the church’s abdication of its responsibility to truth. Ten years later in 1996 Mike Regele and Mark Schultz published The Death of the Church in which they argued, based on generational analysis, cultural trends and several other factors, that within a 20-40 year time frame the Church in America would look like the church in Europe—small, and marginalized within a sea of secularism. Michael Spenser’s article in the Christian Science Monitor echoes these same themes, but from some additional perspectives.
In our tradition, we have been committed to evangelism, but we have generally viewed evangelism strictly in terms of conversion, i.e. praying to receive Christ as savior. However, the call of the Lord in the Great Commission (Matt. 28: 18-19) is not to MAKE DECISIONS, it is to MAKE DISCIPLES. This I suspect is near the heart of our failure. Forty-five years ago as I entered my teenage years fundamentalists/evangelicals knew and believed the Bible. (Admittedly, some of that belief was shallow and hermeneutically suspect but that is a topic for another discussion.) Today, the knowledge of the Bible in Evangelicalism is abysmal. One noted Evangelical New Testament scholar has observed that while Evangelical Scholarship has never been at a higher point—for the first time in about a century we can go toe to toe with liberal scholarship and hold our own—in the Churches we have entered a new Dark Ages with reference to Bible knowledge. As a theologian, I would argue that in the area of theology the situation is parallel but maybe even more bleak.
A bit over a decade ago, Evangelical pollster and sociologist George Barna concluded based on numerous surveys that nearly 40% of the individuals sitting in the pews in Evangelical Churches do not cognitively know enough theology even to be saved. Salvation was an experience rather than a belief in concrete facts. (I am not suggesting that experience is not involved-but that we by our failure to teach theology and the whole counsel of God, have emptied the faith of content and opened the door for Christians to commit idolatry whereby we create God out of our own desires and experience rather than who He has revealed himself to be.)
To me this is a sign of not only failure but of doom.
The parable of the Sower and the Seeds is telling. It would appear to me that American evangelicalism has become like the rocky soil on which the seed was sown. It rapidly germinates and grows impressively, but withers quickly because there is no root.
The Church as the Church will survive. But I fear that American evangelicalism is spiritually and theologically and intellectually bankrupt, having spent its intellectual capital and failing to heed the warnings of those who saw its headlong rush toward the cliff.
I may be overly pessimistic. But as a student of history I have in history repeatedly seen trends that lead to collapses. It is possible that God will intervene with another Awakening akin to the First Great Awakening. If He does “all bets are off.” But given current trends I don’t see much cause for optimism for long-term transformation in our tradition.
Visit M. James Sawyer’s website.
30 replies to "The Coming Evangelical Collapse?"
James, great thoughts. I wholeheartedly agree that Biblically based discipleship has been abandoned in favor of individualistic gratification, inwardly focused hermeneutics, and experiential based learning. Many bifurcate the intellect and experience producing an imbalanced approach that pits one against the other rather the engaging both for a real, fresh and active worship of God. One, I would say, He intended for us to have.
Also, you said:
“One noted Evangelical New Testament scholar has observed that while Evangelical Scholarship has never been at a higher point—for the first time in about a century we can go toe to toe with liberal scholarship and hold our own—in the Churches we have entered a new Dark Ages with reference to Bible knowledge. As a theologian, I would argue that in the area of theology the situation is parallel but maybe even more bleak.”
This seems to present a sort of classism between scholars and lay people (for lack of better terms) that further segregates sound theological learning from the life impacting spirituality that many our seeking. How do you propose bridging that gap in a way that preserves truth and doesn’t result in the way of higher criticism that resulted in the secularism so prevalent in Europe?
We do need an awakening but one that is spiritually originated and infused. It does begin with learning as much as possible about God, His revelation, His plan and purpose on His terms that deeply invades our hearts to impact our experiences.
The Bible does not need to be rethought, but retaught. It does not need to be rewritten, but re-read.
Dr. Foltz, I don’t think anyone is recommending a re-thinking or re-writing of the Bible. In fact, I think that’s been done enough. I agree with your solution but implementation is the tricky part. Telling people to re-read their Bibles (or read in some cases) is a losing battle if they don’t understand why.
On second thought, maybe I don’t so much agree with that solution. Or at least not in its simplistic form. I don’t think the problem is that Christians don’t read their Bibles although that is the case with some. The problem is a lack of understanding their Bibles, what it is, how we got and how to read it. Our individualistic and instananeous brand of Christianity may cause us to read in a fragmentary way to fuel our needs and support pet theologies. Teaching the whole counsel of Scripture and doctrinal development is too tedious, time consuming and to many, too boring and sadly, deemed anti-spiritual.
sister Lisa,
It takes the filling of the Holy Ghost. Only HE can reveal Biblical truth.
One must be saved and walking in obedience for that to happen.
95 percent of professing sbc church members are LOST.
Greg Koukl at Stand To Reason ministries (www.str.org) has an excellent resource entitled “Never Read a Bible Verse” which just basically teaches how to properly read the Bible, i.e. not practicing eisegesis and taking particular verses out of context to suit your particular need. But this post is spot on, most evangelical churches only seek to make converts, get people to sign a card, walk an aisle, whatever. Theology and Doctrine have become dirty words in most churches today and most pastors have become nothing but “Dr. Phil with a Bible”. I’m fixing to leave my current church for these very reasons and go back to my original church.
Partial Solution: More Doctrine, More Polemics.
Done lovingly, of course.
“We create God out of our own desires and experience rather than who He has revealed himself to be.”
How did He reveal Himself to begin with? Is He not the same yesterday, today, and forever? What about a little hands on learning, practicing what we preach? A picture is worth a 1000 words as they say.
This may sound very unevangelical, but as an Evangelical, I find myself increasingly drawn to the conclusion that the Evangelical church will fail because it lacks formally authoritative theological tradition and its church(es) lacks authority.
Forgive my stereotyped analogy, but we have become the jocks and cheerleaders of the Christian world—we don’t have time to hit the books (and we don’t care to) because we are focused on perfecting our game and honing our routines to impress and “defeat” the opposition. And frankly, that’s only the active 20% in the church. The other 80% ditch their books to come see the game, and then go party afterwards.
But even if we get back to the Book, I’m not sure the trend toward dissolution will end. I have always loved the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and it’s worked well for some–particularly those who were willing to spend 5 or so hours a week studying it, which is rare among lay-people. But few people are really going to take the time to synthesize their own theology (in all its loci) from the Bible, and those that do will start their own churches to preach their unique views. Yes the lack of biblical education is a problem, but underlying it, almost all of Protestantism, while agreeing on essentials, lacks the cohesive elements of tradition–of a unified interpretation of scripture–that facilitates lasting community.
It is interesting that Luther seems to have wanted to reform the traditions and practices of the church by giving the Bible primacy, not to totally do away with the authoritative function of tradition, but to call that function to heel. That’s long past, however, and currently it doesn’t seem there’s enough common ground to draw our churches together into a more unified whole.
Jason,
Nice going!
An honest critique by someone on the inside.
Well put. Being an outsider with some experience (all my neighbors are mega-church Evangelicals), I see a lot of truth in what you say.
Thanks.
– Steve M,
Steve M, I concur. Jason I think you make a really valid point. Excellent comment!
I have such an admiration for Luther for standing against the monolith the way we did to provide freedom of learning. He was warned, wasn’t he? If you do that, it’s going to create chaos. Everyone will have their own interpretation. Of course, it was well worth the risk but man, was that some insight!
Oh my soul. Finally someone has clearly said what I have been saying for 20 years. Two particular segments are so relevant to what I have seen:
First, my largest burden:
“In our tradition, we have been committed to evangelism, but we have generally viewed evangelism strictly in terms of conversion, i.e. praying to receive Christ as savior. However, the call of the Lord in the Great Commission (Matt. 28: 18-19) is not to MAKE DECISIONS, it is to MAKE DISCIPLES.” If you don’t make disciples, you may have accomplished nothing of Eternal worth. Perhaps something even worse. People who think they are saved because of some “magical prayer” as it were.
And second and more recent:
“Evangelicalism identified itself with conservative (largely Republican) politics and became just another special interest group on the horizon that wanted a seat at the political table.”
This has made me, well, quite upset at the vocal Christian idiocy of the Bush era and the last Presidential election. Their views are largely born our of naivety and focus on only one or two issues and forgetting the needs of the rest of society. Not to mention the immense amount of proof that I personally have that shows that the Bush administration didn’t give a flying hoot about what these so-called Christian leaders thought, and worse, only used the abortion issue for votes. They had no intention to change that.
If I have made anyone upset, I do apologize, but as was said in the show “The X-Files”, the TRUTH is out there – in the Bible, and in the Spirit. Seek it with all that you have. Seek God with all that you have. This in the end is our only hope.
P.S. I have lived in France for a year. The dearth of Spiritual life is so obvious it feels like a solid object and it hurts. Let’s not let that happen here.
In regards to your 1st Awakening good and 2nd Awakening bad allusions, I would have to take issue. The 1st Awakening had every bit of the bad side effects of the 2nd, and many actually believe the 1st Awakening contributed to the spirit of the American Revolution (entitlement, individualism, etc). In regards to “emotion” that you think the 2nd Awakening only cares about, have you even read “Religious Affections”? The 1st Awakening was about emotions as well.
The birth of the modern missions movement began in the 2nd Awakening. In the first, missions weren’t near as prevalent. Many Bible societies and organizations started as a result of the 2nd Awakening, not the first…some enduring to this very day.
Lets be honest, both Awakenings had their shortcomings and dark spots, so lets stop the rhetoric that the 2nd was horrible while the 1st was great. It’s simply not true, as the fruit proves.
I’m doing something about Biblical ignorance – at the lowest level. I’m making a free audio series of chronological Bible history for children, going from Genesis through Acts.
These are aimed at 4 – 10 year olds, but I’ve had adults say they enjoyed and learned from them. These can be found on 2 websites and are free for downloading:
http://www.grcbible.org/category/audio/other-audio/audio-for-children/
http://www.ccwtoday.org/teachersparents_audiostories.asp
There are 2 more audios that should be up on the websites in the next month; these will complete this series of 18 audios.
Anyone listening to them will have an idea of how the Bible hangs together as a complete history and how the Lord gives and fulfills prophecy. The Gospel is drawn from the text and presented in each audio.
There is also an apologetics for pre-schoolers (“Builders” showing God as the Creator) and an upcoming “The Old Testament shows Jesus.”
Dr. Sawyer,
This is a fascinating piece. It reads like a present-day revelatory letter to one of the seven churches. I wonder, however, if so much of the problem should be attributed to lack of theology and Bible knowledge, or if with such an attribution we are being overly influenced by our own academic predilections. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it true that through the larger part of the church’s history the average Christian had far less Bible knowledge than the typical church going American evangelical has today?
Once an evangelical myself, I sometimes suspect that my former brethren lack the appropriate humility, especially with regard to their own views, whether political, theological, scientific or otherwise. I wonder whether more intellectual humility might lead evangelicals to take a more objective view of themselves, which might in turn lead some to repentance and reform (and perhaps meekness and charity). Such humility might also make them willing to learn.
Jason: “This may sound very unevangelical, but as an Evangelical, I find myself increasingly drawn to the conclusion that the Evangelical church will fail because it lacks formally authoritative theological tradition and its church(es) lacks authority.”
You may be conflating authority with discipline. The two are different and distinct, although they are closely related.
——–
Greg Bahnsen on Sola Scriptura:
“The issue of Scripture and Scripture Alone (or what Protestants have come to call the principle of sola Scriptura) is a matter that divides professing Christians as to the foundation of their faith and what defines their faith. Back in the days of the Reformation when there were men who felt that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ had been not only corrupted by the Roman Catholic Church, but had virtually disappeared under the mask of human traditions and rituals and things that kept people from actually hearing the good news of Jesus Christ, in order to reform the Church, in order to have the grace of God more clearly proclaimed to people, Protestants realized they had to take a stand not only for ‘Sola Gratia’ (i.e., in Latin, ‘By Grace Alone’ for our salvation), but that had to be proclaimed on the basis of sola Scriptura (‘Scripture Alone’) because the Roman Catholic Church used its appeal to human tradition in the Church (or what they considered divine tradition in the Church) as a basis for its most distinctive doctrines.”
Read it all.
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I think this is a good question – though worth re-arranging a little.
I think that there is a fairly persuasive cause that higher criticism wasn’t so much a cause of secularism as an inevitable result of it. Attendance at church services bears this out – it had fallen long before the German Higher Critics started up.
That said, I do think we have to be careful about how the results of academic study are presented to the church at large. If you are going to take someone’s assumptions apart you need to give them time and faith to put their faith back together again.
Which comes back to the problem the original quote was highlighting, a gap has developed between academic theology and that the average christian layman. Whilst this has often been driven by a need to stay united and not offend, in the long run this has produced an odd shaped Christianity.
As an example of the sort of thing I’m talking about take a look at this introduction to a book on the framework view of Genesis:
“This book attempts to provide a self-consistent and biblically consistent interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis, making practical application whenever possible, and taking careful and critical account of the whole range of writing on them – no more than that. It is certainly not put forward as a definitive statement, let alone as the official stance of the Christian organization of which Inter-Varsity Press is the publishing division. Rather, it is is offered to the public as a piece of biblical scholarship which should, like any other, be brought to the bar of Holy Scripture itself. Inevitably some will find here material with which they disagree; but we dare to hope that all who read it will find much of great interest and personal profit. Manifestly, an enormous amount of work remains to be undertaken on these chapters and we should be gratified if this volume were to encourage such endeavours.”
This is manifestly ludicrous – no one expects a publisher to endorse everything every writer they publish says, and yet we all know exactly why it’s included. To stave off the inevitable lynch mob bearing pitch forks.
Based on my own experience I left the evangelical/fundamentalist churches because I saw too much superficiality and a separatist mentality that left me disconnected with life in general. I could not integrate my feelings and my experience with what I was being taught, there was always a verse to explain the deeply complex issues that we go through and my queries were never really answered. Instead of the Bible being the basis of my worldview, it was made to be a text book of sorts that had all the answers. Instead of depth and honesty we get gimmicks. Instead of going into the world to spread the gospel we have created our own “sub-world” that keeps us from people but gives us all the entertainment and prevents us from confronting the real challenges we must face.
“Evangelical pollster and sociologist George Barna concluded based on numerous surveys that nearly 40% of the individuals sitting in the pews in Evangelical Churches do not cognitively know enough theology even to be saved.”
I’d be curious to know what his criteria were.
The fact is that only a small proportion of people have an interest in formulating a theology, and the rest are content to follow along in the main. The problem is who they are going to follow.
A knowledge of Theology, or even of the Bible DOES NOT SAVE. Salvation comes by revelation, by the Holy Spirit.
Luke 10;22-24; Matthew 11;23-29.
Education does not save anyone. No one can be saved apart from God’s Holy Spirit, Who quickens the elect sinner, giving him the graces of faith and repentance, which lead to his conversion.
Without Holy Spirit Conversion, bringing a man to the end of himself, there can be no Salvation.
Dr. Paul Foltz,
You are right, education is just teaching. Conversion is the reality. We must be converted. One thing that bothers me is the arrogance of intellectuals who think they have it all and can be the only true people because they have studied the “Academia of theology”.
There’s been a lot of good people who lived never having been to seminary and they are the ones who have made the most influence because their understanding comes from God Himself.
And you are right Kara. Watch out for those arrogant intellectuals who think that they are the only true people. Why even go to seminary if you could get understanding from God Himself? True people don’t bother with all that “Academia of Theology.” Who needs Barna surveys, books or even brains when you’ve got the Holy Ghost? All this stuff about “anti-intellectualism” is just more fancy talk from people who think they’re better than Jesus.
#16 Truth unites and divides-
I might be imprecise, but I think I do mean formally authoritative tradition. One church disciplines an Evangelical believer. They go to another Evangelical church, and lo and behold, the pastor there interprets, e.g., Jesus’ teaching about divorce differently. A single authoritative tradition would go further than sola Scriptura, which both Pastors adhere to, and give a more unified interpretation.
I read the link to Bahnsen. He makes good points about the difficulties of tradition and conflicting traditions. But how different is this really from the streams of teaching from various famous evangelical teachers? The open theism debate, the lordship salvation debate, and so forth, all produce conflicting divisions, and both sides accuse each other of going beyond what’s been written in the Scripture itself.
So the catch-22 I was trying to point out is this: As I said, I love sola Scriptura, but without a larger body of authoritative tradition (what gives tradition authority in a community? simply people submitting to it), sola Scriptura does not form a cohesive enough basis for an ideology such as Evangelicalism. This doesn’t mean sola Scriptura is unbiblical, it just means that Evangelicalism probably won’t make it as long as it lacks a unifying and binding tradition. Maybe the most orthodox kind of Christianity was never meant to be formalized. If so, then sola Scriptura will continue after Evangelicalism fades away.
If you read closely I wasn’t really arguing that we should add tradition to all of Evangelicalism—as I hinted I don’t think we can at this point. I was just giving the reasoning behind my thinking that Evangelicalism will probably collapse.
The other thing tradition often does, which I didn’t mention, is blunt the arrows of higher criticism.
You said:
40% of the individuals sitting in the pews in Evangelical Churches do not cognitively know enough theology even to be saved.
But did not cite this…where is it from?
Thanks
Alex
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/avoiding-death-by-nostalgia-my-denomination-the-sbc-today#more-2966
There are some interesting parallels here with the SBC where many well-trained evangelicals (those taught sola Scriptura especially) are all but leaving their tradition—or being pushed out by those who otherwise demand their ‘circumcision.’
Evangelicalism is not the SBC. And the leaders in question aren’t necessarily leaving evangelicalism in their own eyes. But you can bet the terms missional and emerging (and even reformed) resonate more with their self-definition than the term Evangelical does.
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I suspect the Evangelical Church has been cutting away at the umbilical cord and has resorted to artificial life support.
It does require the Holy Spirit to maintain life in the church, and I’m afraid too often we have been running a few leagues ahead of Him, almost throughout church history. Learning and scholarship are good and necessary for sustenance and growth, but they are not a good substitute for The Holy Spirit in our lives. We must have a “sanctified” learning and scholarship, and I fear that too often within the Evangelical framework, we have had a “professional” learning and scholarship– and leadership. We have today a highly educated “clergy,” but the proverbial “fog” in the pews.
Perhaps the conclusion has been too hasty, declaring the “older” Evangelicalism of the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s to be intellectually insufficient. The early church began and thrived at a time when most Christians were slaves and tradesmen. But they of course had truth and piety personified in leadership, at least for a time.
There was, I believe, a commitment among Evangelical leadership in the above mentioned 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s,
that we see less frequently in the New Evangelical here and now. Dr. Ryrie once told me ( I only met him one time) that leaders and/or scholars in those times might be wearing cardboard in the soles of their over worn shoes; no money to buy new ones. I don’t see a lot of that “shoe leather” Christianity today among “clergy” or “laity.”
The baby boomers rejected Scofield and Dispensationalism, and their children and grandchildren now frequently reject
Christianity. I’m just not assured in my own mind that the New Evangelicism has fixed anything.
Brother Stumblefoot
The Coming Evangelical Collapse? Really, as in the future? You would have been more accurate to have written its orbituary.