The current state of American evangelicalism

Is evangelicalism declining, maybe dying, or even dead? You don’t have to look around very long to find posts arguing precisely this. Most famously, Michael Spencer argued that This is the End……of Evangelicalism, my Friend and presaged The Coming Evangelical Collapse in a series of posts that sparked considerable discussion.  Many other authors have presented similar ideas while prophesying the end of evangelicalism.

Before commenting further it’s worth noting that we’re only talking about American evangelicalism here. Our international brethren must find it very frustrating when we critique evangelicalism as though American evangelicalism were its only expressions. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, we need to recognize that evangelicalism is a much broader and more diverse movement than we often recognize.

But, despite these claims of evangelicalism’s untimely demise, others beg to differ. In a recent First Things article, Byron Johnson argues that American evangelicalism is alive and well. His basic argument involves the following two basic claims:

• American evangelicalism is not declining despite statistical evidence to the contrary. His basic argument here has to do with the failure of recent surveys to account for several key realities: (1) nondenominational church members are largely evangelical but often represent themselves as “unaffiliated” or even as having “no religion” (which raises its own issues); (2) evangelical denominations grew 156% from 1960 to 2000; and (3) self-reported atheists still account for only 4% of the population.

• American evangelicals are not becoming social liberals. In fact, Johnson argues that younger evangelicals are often more conservatives than previous evangelicals and their non-evangelical counterparts.

Johnson thus concludes:

Leading religious observers claim that evangelicalism is shrinking and the next generation of evangelicals is becoming less religious and more secular, but (as we social scientists like to say) these are empirical questions, and the evidence shows that neither of these claims is true. The number of evangelicals remains high, and their percentage among practicing Christians in America is, if anything, rising. Young evangelicals are not turning to more liberal positions on controversial social issues; in some cases they are becoming more conservative than their parents. Perhaps young evangelicals have become more socially aware and have a longer, broader list of social concerns, but they remain socially conservative.

As with most things, I’m sure the truth lies somewhere in between. The facade of American evangelicalism has developed a number of cracks in recent years, cracks that threaten to widen and permanently scar evangelicalism in years to come. At the same time, American evangelicalism retains a degree of vitality seldom recognized by its critics. I don’t know for sure what the future holds, but it should be interesting.

Flotsam and jetsam (1/18)

• Kevin DeYoung has a nice post on What Made David Great?

David was a man after God’s own heart because he hated sin but loved to forgive it. What better example of God could there be?

• A recent BBC article asks, Does more information mean we know less? Along the way, it presents an interesting comparison between our modern compulsion to stay “current” with the religious impulse to reflect deeply on the past. (HT)

We feel guilty for all that we have not yet read, but overlook how much better read we already are than St Augustine or Dante, thereby ignoring that our problem lies squarely with our manner of absorption rather than with the extent of our consumption.

• John Tertullian discusses the problem of scientism.

One of the silly characteristics of our age is the credulous and naive veneration of science. It has led to the emergence of what we call scientism–faith in science as the ultimate source of truth and wisdom.

• TC Robinson sparked an interesting discussion yesterday on Martin Luther King Jr’s understanding of the Gospel, and whether he got it better than the reformers did.

• Esteban Vázquez has an enthusiastic review of Steve Runge’s Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical Introduction for Teaching and Exegesis. If you’re looking for resources on learning Greek, it sounds like this one is well worth looking into.

• And, a in Orange County, a cat has been ordered to report for jury duty. Of course, this rather odd situation was partially caused by someone who saw the cat as such a part of the family that she listed it on the family’s census form. Why would you do that?

Flotsam and jetsam (8/4)

• Last week I linked to an Inside Higher Ed article on anti-Christian sentiment in higher education. NPR has now produced an article of their own on the subject. And here’s a similar discussion from Christian Post.
• Gary Cutting discusses the relationship of philosophy and faith by addressing the difficulties that all people face when dealing with arguments for and against the existence of God. HT
• Out of UR has posted the first two parts of a video discussion between Mark Dever, Skye Jethani and Jim Wallis on social justice and the Gospel (part 1 and part 2). Obviously, they bring very different perspectives to the table, so it’s worth checking out.
• And, apparently monkeys hate flying squirrels. According to “monkey-annoyance experts,” one of the best ways to annoy a monkey is to place it in proximity to a flying squirrel. The best thing about this article is discovering that there are people out there who make a living out of annoying monkeys. HT

The new face of American evangelicalism

This is from a couple of weeks ago, but somehow I missed it. In case you did as well, here you go.

ABC news did a story on “The New Face of American Evangelicalism,” using a panel discussion with “five young Christians.” The discussion begins with the fact that all of them affirm that the “death of Christian America” is actually a good thing for the church because it frees us from the distractions of power and privilege, allowing us to be the church.

The more interesting part of the discussion comes after the moderator asks, “What are the biggest say 3 or 4 issues in American life that you all have on your minds.” For the next six or seven minutes, the panelists discussed the following:

• education
• poverty
• health care
• violent human conflict
• aids
• climate change and environmental stewardship

Now, the panel was far from representative. Each of the panelists represented an organization that has social justice as a primary purpose. So, of course the discussion was going to be skewed in that direction. But still, it was an interesting representation of a certain strand of contemporary evangelicalism.

Flotsam and jetsam (6/3)

• Here’s another review of Wright’s After Virtue, this time from Michael Horton.
• I commented the other day on Piper’s affirmation of a Sailhammerian view of creation. In case your not sure what exactly that means, here’s a good summary of Sailhammer’s position.
• Time magazine has an interesting article on Evangelicals and social action and another one on the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church that is particularly helpful for understanding the difficulties involved in issuing any kind of meaningful papal apology.
• EvangelicalOutpoust offers some great comments on Hellboy as a story of redemption.
• I had intended to ignore this completely, but I finally caved and decided to post a link to it in case you’re interested and haven’t seen this yet. So, Ted Haggard is doing stuff. That’s about all I’m going to say.
• And, apparently George W. Bush has a Facebook page now. I’m sure he’d appreciate it if you’d drop him a note.