Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Sometimes you can see the train wreck coming

Spencer Williams just published an article that I highly recommend reading. Here is an excerpt:

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.

. . .

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 comment:

  1. Here is a quote from an Austin Business Journal article from today which gives additional local supporting data to your point.

    "Most denominations of organized religion appear to be dwindling in Texas.

    The percentage of Texans who identified as non-Catholic Christians dropped from 68 percent in 1990 to 48 percent in 2008, according to the latest American Religious Identification Survey.

    At the same time, the number of Texans who describe themselves as having “no religion” stood at 12 percent last year, up 7 percent from 1990."

    http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2009/03/09/daily9.html?surround=etf

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