End of Evangelicalism?

9 Responses to End of Evangelicalism?

1. Joshua says:

   March 10, 2009 at 3:15 pm

   Interesting that the author thinks the Catholic and Orthodox churches will grow as a result of de-evangelization, but makes no such prediction (or indeed, any mention at all) of other, non-Christian religions. Catholics in particular have been at least as vocal as evangelicals over abortion and gay marriage; it seems to me that if an anti-Christian backlash really is brewing, it will hit Catholics and evangelicals alike. Orthodox Christians might escape it, if only because they are relatively few and, for the most part, under the radar in terms of political and cultural influence.
2. Roger Hallman says:

   March 10, 2009 at 3:38 pm

   A couple of thoughts:
   1.) Children tend to rebel against their parents, and if the parents are religious it’s not too difficult to see a generation turning their backs o their parents’ faith(s).

   2.) In part because of (1) public religious sentiment tends to be somewhat cyclical. I suppose that that’s why we have “great awakenings” every few generations.

   3.) A few years ago I was bartending at the Phoenix International Airport and my commute home every Sunday afternoon would be horrid because I lived in a neighborhood that had two mega-churches and was building a third. I was always wondering how many churches they could build before the people willing to contribute to the collection pate would dry up. We may be reaching that point. (For a generation or two anyways.)

   A world with less evangelicals? I’m starting to hear George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun”.

   Off-topic but, Bradlaugh I’m using some of your tutorials from Unknown Quantity with some of my students at the community college where I work. Your Russian doll example of number classification has been really helpful. (Oddly enough, it seems like learning what an integer is and what makes it different from a natural number isn’t in the course competencies.)
3. David Hume says:

   March 10, 2009 at 4:25 pm

   i’m skeptical about mass conversions to catholicism (the data show catholics have more, not less, retention problems than protestants, see ‘religious landscape survey’). but i think the point is that the catholic church has a more robust institutional framework.
4. Bradlaugh says:

   March 10, 2009 at 4:53 pm

   Dawkins bless you, Roger! The one thing I believe I screwed up in that book was my definition of a normal subgroup. It’s an awfully hard thing to get across, and pretty much any approach is going to raise problems. I just don’t think my approach was the best. Oh well. On number classification, though, I’m good! Remember: Nine Zulu Queens Ruled China. I’ll admit that my inspiration for that was the mnemonic that medical students learn (in England, anyway) for the five major nerves of the face: Nine Zulus Buggered My Cat.
5. Roger Hallman says:

   March 10, 2009 at 9:24 pm

   Bradlaugh,
   I’ll be seeing both Dawkins and Stephen Hawking speak in a little less than a month. (Origins.asu.edu, should you be interested.) I’ll appeal to Dawkins for his blessing in person.

   Anyways, I was using the Nine Zulu Queens Ruled China mnemonic fr a Lebanese lady who’s trying to test out of a couple levels of basic algebra. She learned everything in French and so I feel like I’m giving a vocabulary lesson and a brief refresher on how to manipulate.
6. Philip says:

   March 11, 2009 at 1:02 am

   In much the same way as ‘Secular Right’ bemoans conservatives throwing their lot in with Christianity, here is a Christian complaining that Christians threw their lot in with political conservatism. Surely there is common cause here?

   It seems to me that the view in this article is very US-centric, though. Evangelicals in the UK, and many other countries, have largely kept out of politics, focus much more on doctrine and generally encourage members to be members of society, rather than trying to set up an alternative society in separate schools, universities, etc. It would be interesting to see how far Michael Spencer thinks his comments apply outside the US.
7. Bradlaugh says:

   March 11, 2009 at 3:42 am

   Roger: Remember to kneel reverently and bow your head when being blessed. For best results, you should murmur the first few dozen letters of the human genetic code while Prof. Dawkins is laying on hands. The entire code for one individual is on Gutenberg.org
8. HolgerDanske says:

   March 11, 2009 at 8:32 am

   I can only hope that the Conservative movement throws off the shackles of the Christian Right. I consider the Evangelicals to be fair-weather voters; if they don’t get their Preacher/Politician they won’t vote and if the think the other guy is the Anti-Christ they’ll vote and hope for the Rapture.

   There has to be a better option than Big Government/Small Church and Small Government/Big Church candidates.
9. Thrasymachus says:

   March 13, 2009 at 12:55 pm

   Spencer is excessively hostile to eangelicals. The “Sojourner” crowd has been around a long time but has had little of the cultural impact of evangelicals. (Religiously, anyway, in secular liberalism these people are very strong.) Say what you will about Creflo Dollar at least he’s trying to help people lead better lives.

Comments are closed.