The End of Evangelicalism? II

Okay, I have a few free minutes so I’d like to continue interacting with Michael Spencer’s piece, “The coming evangelical collapse” from the CSM. Spencer continues his essay with this statement:

Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

He is exactly right and if these two traditions weren’t problematic from a Protestant and biblical perspective, I’d join them myself. But why are these two communions so attractive to evangelicals? Some major reasons are that they are rooted historically, have identifiable magisterial authority structures, and have expressed themselves beautifully and profoundly in worship. The last two centuries have seen Protestants, and evangelicals in particular, divesting themselves of these things as quickly as possible. We’re nearing the end of this nominalist impulse and there’s nothing left in the house of faith. The question is not why someone would want to head to Rome or Constantinople but what’s left to make someone want to stay in evangelicalism? Fortunately, there are some rumblings of life in Reformed and Anglican circles that take all these things seriously. There is also a broad move across denominational lines that is questioning and taking a second look at more historic ways of being the church.

Next, the author says:

The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.

I, unfortunately, agree with him here. I thought the emerging church would offer more profound fruit than it has. There seemed at first, a serious re-consideration of tradition and the role of sign symbol in worship. But at the end of the day, the movement seems to be fragmenting along two lines: (a) really cool Reformed Baptists and (b) rather vapid overgrown house churches that brazenly commodify snippets of other traditions. These will simply fuel the current decay over time.

The final point I’ll interact with in this post is this:

Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion? To do so, it must make a priority of biblical authority, responsible leadership, and a reemergence of orthodoxy.

This is a fascinating phenomenon. Charismatic-Pentecostalism is the rapidly growing expression of Protestant-Evangelicalism worldwide. It is also a tradition that is maturing in the West. Because of their lack of rigid doctrinal frameworks, the tradition is also is more flexible to change and growth. I’ve noticed in my town, the one group (across all traditional lines) that is serious about expanding the kingdom of God here and now and transforming our metropolitan context, are the Charismatic-Pentecostals. They are also very open to re-assessing worship, sacraments and eschatology often holding to an optimistic view of the trajectory of the world without having all the pieces laid down. This is important because a tradition that is cynical, sees active engagement with the culture here and now as futile, and believes the end of the world is coming in this generation, is also a tradition that is in its death throes in a post-Christian context. It is parasitic in nature and loses its power when it has no host.

Comments

[mark]

I haven't had time to interact with the Internet Monk's piece, so I'm doubly glad that you are doing so. Thank you! Good thoughts.