“Dwindling Evangelicalism”
I recently read an interview with the author of “The Fall of the Evangelical Nation”, Christine Wicker. The book’s author seems to imply that evangelicalism is on the decline and makes much of the Southern Baptist Convention’s recent report of fewer baptisms. As she puts it, “their evangelical passion just is not there” and they “have lost their evangelical zeal.” She attributes this to a change in the zeitgeist of the culture, that people cannot stomach the idea of there being only ‘one way to heaven.’ “We simply cannot go there anymore.” Whether this is due to the influence of the dubiously monikered ‘postmodernism’, the bugaboo of many an evangelical, or something else entirely, I do not know. But, sadly, I think she does have a point. I think that some of it stems from our seeming self-love, our desire to build big buildings with coffee-shops, gyms, and playgrounds, while the world around us rots. It’s hard to not to look (thanks largely to modern mass-media) at the suffering in the world today and not feel disallusioned by billboards of nicely dressed people, smiling with overly white teeth, looking at us and saying ‘oh, what a grand time you’ll have here.’ It’s hard for me to send students across the globe to do ‘missions’ and live in meager surroundings and see their disgust with America as they return home to riches, comfort, and indulgence.
If we are to save ‘evangelicalism’, it won’t be by forsaking our committment to Biblical truth and authority or by saying ‘there are many roads to heaven.’ But there must be a change: in our message (not the Gospel), in our commitments, in our priorities. Too long has our evangelism focused ‘have a good time with Jesus’ or ‘have a lovely eternity in heaven’ or ‘come be a good person with us’ instead of the life-changing realization of life lived not for self but for God. Perhaps the reason we have not a ‘stomach’ for evangelism is that we have evangelized our stomach, preaching a full belly of self-satisfaction instead of denial of self (Luke 9:23). Perhaps our evangelistic zeal would be more evident if we could honestly look over our land and weep as did Jesus over Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37). We must demonstrate our weeping through our sacrifice, through our time, through our wallets, not to build the newest edifice of worship, but to build up the kingdom of God within the hearts of those around us, not through fancy sales pitches, but through earnest compassion.
You’ve just got to hate those changes in cultural zeitgeist.
That American evangelicalism (a term worthy of further definition) is in decline is without debate. The questions this fact raises (and I would enjoy hearing your take on) would be (1) why, and (2) what are you going to do about it?
RAISE. The questions this fact RAISE… Sorry for the typo.
I’m not sure if your response is directed toward me or if you are throwing out rhetorical questions. The post was intended to react to one hypothesis as to the “why?” and offer some, admittedly broad, suggestions about your second question.
Yes, defining what one means by evangelicalism would be a good starting point on any discussion regarding it. In the original article, I believe the author was addressing a merging of ‘evangelistic zeal’ (i.e., wanting to see the lost saved) and a flexing of the moral muscle in the political arena, and how the loss of the former reflected on the latter.
By the way, your original comment was grammatically correct. “this fact” is the subject and “the questions” are the object, therefore, “raises” is the correct verb for a singular subject. Another way to write it would be “This fact raises the questions…”