1 thought on “Is Church decline the fault of evangelicals?”
No, church decline is a consequence of the disruptions of the 1960s. Evangelicals did not cause those disruptions, and some evangelicals brilliantly turned the implicit critique of 1950s conventionality to evangelistic advantage.
However, those evangelicals have been eclipsed since by others who are militant conservatives locked in unending battle with their *indispensible enemies* the militant liberals. The endless conservative-liberal conflict inhibits re-evangelisation in three ways– (1) As each side attacks the other, neither has the credibility to evangelise; (2) An overriding concern for public morals communicates hostility and suspicion of those to be evangelised; (3) Crystalised belief and practise that are easier to defend are also forbiddingly far from where the public now lives.
It is hard to plan a response. The widespread tendency to Bowling Alone (Robert Putnam) makes it difficult to use measures of mass participation. The impersonal apologetic of the past does not engage the tendency to judge religion from the *personalist* perspective of a confident humanistic alternative (Charles Taylor). Further evolution is required.
In the meantime, qualitative research, including history, is more revealing than surveys. Callum Brown is among the most astute analysts–
No, church decline is a consequence of the disruptions of the 1960s. Evangelicals did not cause those disruptions, and some evangelicals brilliantly turned the implicit critique of 1950s conventionality to evangelistic advantage.
However, those evangelicals have been eclipsed since by others who are militant conservatives locked in unending battle with their *indispensible enemies* the militant liberals. The endless conservative-liberal conflict inhibits re-evangelisation in three ways– (1) As each side attacks the other, neither has the credibility to evangelise; (2) An overriding concern for public morals communicates hostility and suspicion of those to be evangelised; (3) Crystalised belief and practise that are easier to defend are also forbiddingly far from where the public now lives.
It is hard to plan a response. The widespread tendency to Bowling Alone (Robert Putnam) makes it difficult to use measures of mass participation. The impersonal apologetic of the past does not engage the tendency to judge religion from the *personalist* perspective of a confident humanistic alternative (Charles Taylor). Further evolution is required.
In the meantime, qualitative research, including history, is more revealing than surveys. Callum Brown is among the most astute analysts–
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9809.2010.00909.x/full