CHRISTIAN commentator Michael Spencer is a believer – with a twist. He describes himself as:
A post-evangelical reformation Christian in search of a Jesus-shaped spirituality.
Don’t ask, as we ain’t got a clue what that means either.
But the Kentucky-based writer has an interesting view of the American evangelical movement.
He is convinced it’s heading for oblivion.
Michael Spencer
According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, Spencer says:
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.
He adds:
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.
This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.
Why is this going to happen?
Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.
The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can’t articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith … Evangelicalism doesn’t need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral.
Despite this, Spencer – known as the Internet Monk – holds out some optimism for the future of Christianity:
We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.
We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.
I’m not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
April 13th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Am I a bit tipsy on a bank holiday – or is that fella talking a bit of sense? (obviously we need no evaginacals at ALL!)
I hope the future is bleak for the type of backward, homophobic, greedy fascist he is discussing.
April 13th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
But, that’s what Christianity has always done. Every last Christian throughout history. Just ask them!
April 13th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Evangelical movement on the verge of collapse? Good. Let it wither away. This world will be better off without it anyway.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Ding, dong the witch is dead…
Ooops. Celebrating a bit early. My bad.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Will this be the man who finally convinces me to listen to post-evangelical reformation Christians in search of a Jesus-shaped spirituality?
April 14th, 2009 at 2:32 am
Why not just bury the whole kit and kaboodle? Face it, Christianity holds little appeal even for spiritually-inclined agnostics brought up in Christian traditions. A lank-haired, humourless young hippy wandering around expecting people to worship him is just not very spiritually attractive to most people these days, and probably never was. People believed in Christisanity for the Adam and Eve bits and the Noah’s Ark bits, not the pious, po-faced hippy bits. In fact the crucifixion is a popular motif precisely because people take a quiet satisfaction in seeing the self-important twat get his come-uppance.
April 14th, 2009 at 5:30 am
You know, I’d actually prefer it if this happened and America learned to accept atheism. I’ve gotten pretty tired of having people clothes their racism, hate, and intolerance behind religion. You can’t really dig it out of that without causing more problems than not.
(not to say that Atheism leads to any of those things, I just see religion as being used for one more bastion to protect such views and outlooks, and wrongly so)
April 14th, 2009 at 5:57 am
Who made this dipshit the spokesman for evangelical Christ-mongering? Believe me, they are alive and well.
April 14th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Fantastic news.
April 14th, 2009 at 11:42 am
And long overdue.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I hope he’s right but something doesn’t quite add up about his ‘answer’.
As I understand it, the whole point of ‘evangelical’ Christianity is to keep getting new punters through the door, while the whole point of the ‘house church’ movement is folks who mind their own business and don’t impose their views on others.
I guess the real test would be are they also offering to give up all the tax breaks and just pay the bills like everyone else?
Somehow I doubt that, based on local examples which seem to sponge off both the state and charitable status in offering bogus ‘social work’ schemes.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Moan, whine, Christians don’t have the final say in ‘moral, social and political issues’ anymore… such devestating intolerance, sniff.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
As far as I am concerned it can’t happen fast enough.
April 14th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Brilliant post from Bubblecar. It is strange how Christians see this wonderful bloke when they read the Gospels. To me he comes across as a complete arsehole and has nothing but insults and name calling for anyone who disagrees with him or fails to instantly grasp his incomprehesible pronouncements.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
A perusal of Wikipedia’s “List of Christian Evangelist scandals”, provides a telling assessment of American Christianity’s shaky foundation. This is not to say that there have not been many fine, upstanding Christian evangelists, who would rather have died than scandalized their flock.
The basic problem with American Christianity, as I see it, is that it has hatred of people who differ from it as one of its main Raisons d’etre.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
The house church idea has it’s root in the Messiah’s teaching. Pray inside your closed doors. As for the hatred Christian will encounter we are also warned of this through the perfect teachings of Christ. Mose’s gave divorce because your hearts were hard. In the beginning it was not so. One of the problem’s of western Christianity is that one of it’s biggest church’s, The Church of England was found upon Divorce.
Jesus spoke in the Temple where people who were educated in the old law would hopefully know what he was talking about. Nothing incomprehensible about one’s own culture. He was also specific about how the word was to be taught for this very reason.
Love
October 4th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Wow…its stunning to see how open-minded agnostics and athiests are when baited into the topic of religion. Aren’t these the same folks that put COEXIST bumper stickers on their cars? The truth of the matter is that those who chose to commit their lives to the resolve of self-centeredness have little ability to commit at all. There is a chosen idleness or hesitation to do little more than blame those who commit to something greater than themselves and direct their dissention towards those whom commit their lives to the call of obedience, lawfulness, and acceptance. For it is easy to persecute without evidence versus be persecuted. But when you have not suffered anything more difficult than self-loathing I guess it is easy to consider one’s self as guiltless–and no one is free of guilt. Christiandom is not dead, but wounded by the very same nature that afflicts non-believers, which is a lack of acceptance towards what we know to be truth byway of consciousness. Read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for philosophical, theological, literary authoritative support to this truth. All in all, to those who have furthered the attack here, don’t be fooled by your pretense that an argument of reason can be had based on a child’s understanding or experience of religion. For, who would argue with a child but another child? The world has proven factually the very history that is collected in the Bible, which is why no one has yet to disprove the validity of Christ. Maybe I would believe in you 2000 years after you died if your life healed and expressed a genuine concern for my entire existence. But since I won’t remember you after I leave here than why believe in your shallow words of condemnation? If you disagree be agreeable to the idea that we will soon enough know the truth.