"The Coming Evangelical Collapse" - Thought-Provoking Article in Christian Science Monitor
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.
If you're an evangelical Christian, you should take a look at this article for some very thought-provoking insights about what the future may hold for us. I don't agree with every thought, but I'm certainly right there with the writer's indictment of the mega-church and prosperity gospel. I also find the author's suggestion that it is time for missionaries from Africa and Asia to come to minister to the US to be especially humbling.
I've often discussed with my father a perceived fade in the churches of my own faith tradition - a definite impression that things are past their zenith. Some readers of this post may rejoice in that - the continuing secularization of our culture and diminishing of the church is only perceived as a bad thing if you're a believer - which I am.
Yet the writer manages to see hope in the wreckage. And I guess that's the crux of the matter - if the church is only a human construct, we have plenty to be concerned about in the coming years. But if the core beliefs of the church are true - that God has redeemed his creation through the sacrifice of His own Son - then there's really nothing we as failed and flawed can do to screw things up beyond repair. The church as institution may fail, but the Church as bride will live on...
Read the complete article here: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html
