The end of evangelism

So after the other day’s fairly frivolous corn muffin balladry. I’m back to something more serious. Apparently the evangelical Christian community is worried that their grip on the US is collapsing (I can only hope that I’ve been just a small part of such things). The link below is to an article that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor which as a side note was founded by Ms. Mary Baker Eddy who also founded the Church of Christ, scientist…which is easily the most ironic name in all of religion and while they have a nice building as a headquarters is a true tarnish to the great city of boston. I could go on and on about the awful things that particular church has done in the name of superstition, delusion, and lunacy but I’ll refrain for now.

 

The Coming Evangelical Collapse

 

The article state seven things that are causing the end of the evangelical movement

1.       Getting too caught up in singular issues rather than issues of faith (i.e pro-life, anti-gay marriage, etc.)

2.       Failure to educate their youth on issues of faith that can stand up to the secular intellectual juggernauts (people like me but better).

3.       Shrinking congregations except for the “mega-churches”

4.       Failure of Christian education to “withstand the rising tide of secularism” (translation: shit…evolution looks pretty solid…what now?)

5.       Secular morals will replace the “good” that evangelicals want to do and so they will then be viewed as “bad” (I like when Christians deal in absolutes and far reaching generalizations)

6.       Inability to pass on confidence in the scripture to children.(Now, if even kids wont believe this stuff…what does that say about its veracity? Remember when you believed that a fairy gave you money for teeth? Yea…nuff said.)

7.       “The money will dry up” (Couldn’t they pray for more?)

 

Anyways, I think these are pretty good reasons…unfortunately I’m not as worried as the CSM is about these particular problems thought I certainly wish I was. But I do feel inclined to comment on a few of them.

1.       Issues rather than faith…this is a fundamental flaw in not just the evangelical community. They certainly make a big deal about it but the catholic church does it, the jews have Zionism, and the muslims have the anti-zionism stuff to tangle with, Buddhists have Tibet, hindus have hating muslims etc. All of these things are not really based in so much scripture as they are in personal opinion of a select few. They all tend to cause religious folk to kill each other with abandon.

2.       Failure to educate youth to stand up to secular ideas…this isn’t really a failure but a realization. There is nothing they could possibly do. The secular forces they refer to are most notably reason and logic and unfortunately for them…they stand up pretty well on their own…the bible doesn’t fare as well

3.       Shrinking congregations…: ) 

4.       Failure of Christian education…see point 2

5.       This point falls into the category of…if you don’t believe in god then how do you know what is right. To that I say we have innate human morals…much like human rights (but religions have a poor record on those). If it was conclusively shown tomorrow that no good exists…would the world go crazy? Would you? Probably not? If you only act morally because of an intense fear of “benevolent” man in the sky then what does that say about you. If I act morally without that fear…what does it say about me. If there was a god…which one of us would he appreciate more?

6.       Confidence in the scripture…those crazy kids are getting smarter every day.

7.       Money is the root of all evil…or so they say. Jesus said blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. If that’s all true than the evangelicals should be PSYCHED and the pope should be WORRIED. Grad students should also feel pretty good about things too but that’s a topic for another post.

 

I’m pretty surprised that the CSM made the assessments that they did but clearly I’m biased and view the problem as being larger than they do…actually my problems are their successes and vice versa. Time will tell but I’m proud to be in that 15% which now finally outnumbers the evangelicals, I’m not sure if this is appropriate or not but HALLELUJAH. Patrick OUT!!!