True Horizon

For the next several posts I am going to literally put technology under a magnifying glass. There is little doubt that technology has impacted our culture in both good and bad ways. My aim over the next few weeks is to use a single technological breakthrough as a powerful example of how that has happened. The technological marvel I will use to illustrate this is one that most of us probably do not think of when we think “high-tech”: GLASS. But I hope you will be as surprised as I was to learn just how significant an impact glass has had on our culture. This series of posts springs from a paper I wrote during my graduate work in Christian Apologetics. I share it with you because the more I researched the topic while writing the paper, the more fascinating it became for me. I hope it has the same eye-opening effect on you as it did on me. I would love to hear your comments and thoughts about the topic (Editor’s Note: Because this series of posts is based on a research paper, it draws from sources that would be very cumbersome to list on a blogsite. Where sources are used, I will annotate them with an * and would be glad to provide the source information to anyone who may be interested … thanks). Here goes …

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Technically, glass is neither a liquid nor a solid, but a hybrid state of matter with the random molecular structure of a liquid and all the rigidity of a solid.*  Though its natural origins exist in the cooled lava of ancient volcanoes, man began to produce glass for himself about four thousand years ago.  From the beginning, man’s quest to perfect and use glass to his advantage has also been a hybrid story.  That story is more than a list of technological and artistic achievements.  It is also a story of the profound ways in which glass has impacted man and his culture.

From the first rudimentary attempts by northern Europeans to allow light, and retain heat, in their homes, to the birth of the high speed Internet, glass has taken us from windows to Windows®.  Historically, glass has played a veiled but weighty role in the philosophical and practical foundations of humanity’s ability to expand its reliable knowledge base.*  The unique properties of glass – its transparency to allow viewing and its resistance to chemical change – helped make it an essential link in the chain of developments that led from man’s accurate knowledge of the laws of nature, to the resultant industrial revolution, and to the high-tech society in which we live.  Of the twenty most important scientific experiments in human history, sixteen would not have been possible without glass.*  Some consider glass to be a “sine qua non of the development of the experimental method we call science.”*

But these modern transformations were not merely technological and they were never isolated.  The same advancements in optics that led to our improved understanding of light, physics, cosmology and biology also led to revolutionary changes in the artistic representation of nature in Renaissance art.*  The same mirrors that were used in the application of geometry to modern science also became instruments of human vanity and self-assessment.*  A look at the history of glass reveals a distinctive pattern of repeatedly connecting the material and intellectual realms.  Glass not only changed our understanding of the world, it changed the way we understand the world.  Glass expanded what we know and forever altered how we know it.  It is glass through which the light of the sun enters our homes, and the darkness of a perverted humanity enters our minds.

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{Sylvia Juran (Editor). Innovations in Glass. p 7}
{Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin. Glass: A World History. p. 27}
{Macfarlane and Martin from: Rom Harré, Great Scientific Experiments That Changed Our View of the World}

Spencer’s conclusion is really a question … Should we be dreading the supposed collapse or hastening its arrival? Specifically, he wonders …

Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshal resources, training, and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches.

Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership. We must change the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate ones.

Will the coming collapse get Evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about the loss of substance and power? Probably not. The purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in fine form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church’s problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time.

Here he kind of loses me again … because again he offers a thinly-veiled chastisement of the “culturally inappropriate” church. Spencer wants us to become more relevant to the culture. Then, in the next sentence quoted above, derides our pragmatism and shallowness. Which is it, Mr. Spencer? You can’t have it both ways. Indeed, I would contend that it is the shallowness and pragmatism of the culture that has infiltrated the church and made it irrelevant!

If the collapse comes, I envision the solid core of the church remaining — a contemporary “remnant” that may retreat into the shadows but will do so with a renewed motivation to “contend for the faith,” even if the task seems overwhelming. I see a kind of “engaged monasticism” in our future. History has shown that, from its inception, the church has become strongest when it is under attack.

Perhaps the coming collapse — no matter how dramatic it actually turns out to be — will force us to re-evaluate not only that we believe, but why we believe it. Perhaps it will force us to do what the apostle Paul challenged us to do in Romans 12:1-2 — involve our entire being in the practice of our faith and thereby be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Perhaps then, the church, though smaller, will become the kind of thing it was meant to be in the first place.

And I don’t see that as a bad thing at all … I see it as an opportunity.

Here are a couple of statistics that serve to buttress the case for Michael Spencer’s The Coming Evangelical Collapse …

SEVENTY FIVE …
… is the percentage of young adults who, after they leave high school and the comparative safety of their parents home to go off to college or into the workforce, also leave the church.

NINE …
… is the percentage of self-proclaimed born-again, evangelical Christians who actually hold to what can be considered a Biblical Worldview.

It doesn’t take much of an imagination to see where those kinds of trends will take us. But, it seems to me, it does take quite a high level of denial in the face of these statistics, to disagree with the “internet monk.” How does the church sustain itself when less than 10% of its members can defend their own alleged view of the world? Obviously they can’t — which is why their kids are all walking away from the faith. Other surveys show that the percentage of self-identified Christians has dropped from 86% to 76% since 1990. At the same time, those who report no religious affiliation has more than doubled, from 8% to 15% (USA Today, April 27, 2009, p. 11A).

That same report shows some more positive news within the negative. For instance, almost the entire jump in “no affiliation” came by 2001, where it reached 14.1%. In other words, there has only been a 0.9% increase in the “no affiliation” crowd over the last 8 years — basically a flatline. It also shows that much of the exodus from mainline Christian churches has been toward non-denominational churches.

OK but this, I think, is wishful thinking. While those who are attempting to spin the results to be less daunting, it seems to be a stretch. Once again, look at Europe. Mainline Christian churches on the Continent have either disappeared or been gutted. That is nothing new. And while those non-denominational churches in America may have grown over the last few years, what have they grown into? These are the spiritualized dens of a “Christless Christianity” that have brought us the 75% and 9% statistics discussed above.

I don’t see how we can avoid some form of a collapse. Maybe Spencer has exaggerated the size of it but it seems to me his prognostication can’t be all that far off.

A couple of months ago, a fellow pilot I was flying with raved about a fascinating book he had just read and which he recommended highly. I asked him to give me a Cliff’s Notes version of the book on a flight from Cincinnati to San Francisco (It was to allow conversations like this, by the way, that God invented the autopilot on the 8th Day).

My co-pilot was right. The book did sound fascinating. But as he described the threads of history the book wove together, it occurred to me that each of the threads sounded awfully familiar. I took it upon myself to find the book and skimmed it over the last few days. The title of the book is The Birth of Plenty, by William Bernstein, and its premise is that history has proven there are four sources required for economic growth and prosperity. From the introduction …

The prerequisites for economic growth …

1. Secure property rights, not only for physical property, but also for intellectual property and one’s own person — civil liberties
2. A systematic procedure for examining and interpreting the world — the scientific method
3. A widely available and open source of funding for the development and production of new inventions — the modern capital marketplace
4. The ability to rapidly communicate vital information and transport people and goods.

Now it seems to me that number 4) is a direct result of number 2). The scientific method logically leads to the technological advances that have brought us efficient and capable transportation and communication systems. So, what we are left with is three vital prerequisites to economic growth: secure property rights, the scientific method, and capital markets. What interested me about this list comes from another book I’ve read by Rodney Stark, a PhD Professor of Social Sciences at Baylor University. Mr. Stark’s book, The Victory of Reason specifically addresses the genesis of each of these (and is the source for much of what follows).

Oh yes, and the subtitle of his book is: “How Christianity Led To Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success.”

Stark begins by addressing the following observations:

When European first began to explore the globe, their greatest surprise was not the existence of the Western Hemisphere, but the extent of their own technological superiority over the rest of the world. Not only were the proud Mayan, Aztec, and Inca nations helpless in the face of European intruders; so were the fabled civilizations of the East: China, India, an even Islam were backward by comparison with sixteenth-century Europe. How had this happened? Why was it that although many civilizations had pursued alchemy, it led to chemistry only in Europe? Why was it that, for centuries, Europeans were the only ones possessed of eyeglasses, chimneys, reliable clocks, heavy cavalry, or a system of music notation? How had the nations that had arisen from barbarism and the rubble of fallen Rome so greatly surpassed the rest of the world?

The answer to each of these questions is the same — Europe was Christian, and Christianity’s belief that God is a rational, reasonable Being provided the impetus for Christians to believe that the world — His creation — should reflect that reason and rationality. They sought to know the world better, discover all they could about it, and apply that knowledge with a hope for the future and a motivation to improve it. This trait was utterly unique in the world and history shows that its impact was explosive.

The Scientific Method was born from the Bible’s charge to “test everything” and hold on to what is good. The list of those who made the most impacting discoveries and inventions in history is a Who’s Who list of Christian thinkers and scientists. It was Christians who developed the scientific method and used it to stoke the scientific revolution that led to our technology-driven modern world and the economic prosperity it generated.

Secure Property Rights and freedom were concepts for which most non-European cultures did not even have a word! It was Christian thinking that led to individualism, freedom and human rights, and Christian leaders who led the charge to abolish not only Medieval slavery, but more the more modern slave-trade in England

Capital Markets first emerged in the great monastic estates of Europe. There, innovations in production, farming technology and transportation set the stage for free markets, property rights and uncoerced labor. This is where Capitalism was born, and within it: specialized product development, a cash economy, credit and mortgages, interest and profits, and the motivation for promoting the virtues of work and frugality.

Each of these are things we seem to have forgotten at best, or that we deliberately ignore at worst. We have interventionist government policies being implemented that directly challenge the very foundation of a capitalist society and we are seeing the corrosion of our economy as a result. We are encouraging national indebtedness, punishing those who have been frugal, undermining the trust of credit markets, rewarding mortgage irresponsibility, and confiscating profits. Because each of these began as a result of Christian thinking, we should not be surprised if the public is also being duped into an economy that is antithetical to Christian ideals — the two are inextricably linked.

Like I said last time, if you want to see the future toward which we seem to be headed, look at Europe. It has abandoned both.

So, to wrap up the discussion of the economic collapse that will help precipitate the Evangelical collapse Michael Spencer predicts, my contention is that his prediction only touches the surface. I have no reason to doubt his thoughts about Evangelicalism. I just happen to believe that our abandonment of capitalism will be far more destructive than a simple problem for the church … and that is because it reflects a more foundational abandonment of the Christian principles that have worked so well precisely because they are rooted in the nature of God himself.

In my previous post, I began to address Spencer’s prediction that the Collapse of Evangelicalism will occur to great degree because “money will not be flowing towards Evangelicalism in the same way as before.” While I disagreed with what seemed to be the thrust of Spencer’s argument — that the cause of this drying up of funds will be mainly due to a generational shift from the “greatest generation” to the more selfish contemporary churchgoers — I do not disagree with his conclusion.

The money will dry up, but not because evangelicals will be less giving. The real reason the money going into evangelical coffers will dry up is because American wealth in general is evaporating. And the reason I am discussing it here is because the cause of that evaporation is directly related to faith issues — specifically to a proper view of the nature of man and how that human nature serves as the foundation of liberty and capitalism.

Want proof? Look across the Atlantic.

Mark Steyn has become well-known for his analysis of sociological and demographic trends by which Islam is in the process of swallowing Europe whole. Recently, he made the case that America has chosen to follow suit, if not in its capitulation to Islam (yet), at least in its acceptance of socialist policies that will accelerate our financial decline. Europe has a head start but we’re doing our best to catch up. Here are a few facts that buttress his case (“Prime Minister Obama,” National Review, March 23, 2009):

• In Sweden, state spending accounts for 54% of GDP
• In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, state spending accounts for 72 -78% of the economy
• In 1999, U.S. government spending was 34% of GDP … Today, the U.S. spends about 40% of GDP

Key word: “today.”

If you’ve been watching the news at all since … say, January 20, 2009, you may have noticed that we will soon look back on the 40% of GDP we’re spending now as a time of governmental spending restraint. Being that we are accelerating in the European direction, it is instructive to see what these economic policies have brought to Europe.

Germany was an economic powerhouse in the 1960s and 70s. At that time its workers and American workers put in almost identical hours on the job. Today the average American works 1,800 work hours per year, while the average German works about 1,350 (25% less!). As a result, Germany now sports an anemic economic growth rate of 1.1%. This, we are told, is due to more “family friendly” policies that include 35-hour work weeks and lots of vacation time. But, as only Steyn could put it, “for a continent of ‘family friendly’ policies, Europe is remarkably short of families.”

Steyn goes on to tie economic reality with a far more daunting, but related, development. While the U.S. fertility rate (so far) remains at replacement level, “seventeen European countries are at the ‘lowest low’ fertility rate of below 1.3 — a rate from which no society in human history has ever recovered!” Where countries of the European Union used to have 4 workers for every retiree a century ago, by 2050 Germany will only have 1.1.

I’ll spare you the rest of the statistics and numbers. The point is this: Europe is in a decline that stems from the notion that the “caring hand” of the government is the utopian answer to all our wants and needs, and that it is our right to drink from its bottomless source of plenty. As Steyn has pointed out elsewhere, the Continent will be unrecognizable within a couple of generations from lack of an ability to sustain itself either demographically or economically. Islam is on the march there and the Christian church has declined to the point of a farce. Some of the most beautiful cathedrals on Earth have become echo chambers for a faith as vacuous as the economy that has followed them into the abyss.

As Steyn quotes Charles Murray writing in his book In Our Hands:

Give people plenty and security, and they will fall into spiritual torpor … When life becomes an extended picnic, with nothing of importance to do, ideas of greatness become an irritant. Such is the nature of the Europe syndrome.

Is this the way we want to go? I hope not. But we are going there because we have forgotten, or don’t want to admit, that the foundation of our wealth, prosperity, and liberty is grounded in the Christian faith that has evaporated from Europe much as Michael Spencer believes Evangelicalism will implode here.

More on that next time …

One of Spencer’s predictions in his piece, “The Coming Evangelical Collapse,” is this one:

7) A major aspect of this collapse will happen because money will not be flowing towards evangelicalism in the same way as before. The passing of the denominationally loyal, very generous “greatest generation” and the arrival of the Boomers as the backbone of evangelicalism will signal a major shift in evangelical finances, and that shift will continue into a steep drop and the inevitable results for schools, churches, missions, ministries and salaries.

Though Spencer only mentions this in passing, I believe that this practical problem, combined with educational problem I discussed in my last post, will be violently destructive, not only to Evangelicalism, but to America in general. Let’s face it, much of what we call “Evangelicalism” is comprised of a business and marketing strategy that works just like the rest of the world. That is a problem in itself. We have churches that employ marketing schemes and refer to their visitors as “prospects.” Our churches do their best to not “turn people off,” or make them feel “uncomfortable.” These type of strategies (and much, much more) fall under the seeker sensitive umbrella that is best left for another discussion. This is an unfortunate but unavoidable reality. But it seems to me that within this link between faith and economics there exists the seeds not only for the Evangelical collapse Spencer envisions, but for an national economic calamity that will make our current crop of crises look tame by comparison.

For starters, I do not necessarily accept the premise on which this prediction of Spencer is based. It has become paradigmatic to cite the differences between the selfless heroes of the “greatest generation” and the self-centered, narcissists from us Boomers to Gen X. I can’t say I completely disagree with that assertion but I do not accept it without condition. I have seen our current crop of young men and women sign up, in the wake of 9/11, to defend this nation with full knowledge that they would be fighting a faceless enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan within months. These may be the aberrant minority but they also represent at least one exception that renders the paradigm inaccurate. There is a spark of selflessness and service in our twenty-somethings that I hope and pray will help to mitigate the effects we are talking about here.

That said, there is no doubt that the simple demographics of the Boomer generation will be financially harmful to the Evangelical movement. Add to that the economic climate that has recently been foisted upon us all and the outlook is grim. No doubt the depth of commitment to sacrificial giving and charity will be tested as the unemployment rate climbs, wages deteriorate, and investment portfolios fade before our eyes. It seems that these are the reasons Spencer bases his forecast on, and I have no reason to argue to the contrary. But I believe there is a more foundational issue at work here — an issue that will not just be harmful to Evangelicalism, but also to the broader economic philosophy on which the idea of America is based. For that reason, the economic pain felt by our churches and ministries will be just a part of a more substantial and long-term disease that will infect us all.

More on that next time …

… after a quick detour to discuss Ida, I am back to continue the discussion of “The Coming Evangelical Collapse” as it has been predicted by Michael Spencer …

As a lead-in to a continued discussion of Spencer’s reasons why this is going to happen, I cannot let go of the bothersome assertion that evangelicals need to stop being perceived as constituting a “threat to cultural progress.” Just this week I ran across a discussion (National Review, May 4, 2009, p. 44) of heroism and the notion that “courage consists in making the right decisions in difficult circumstances.” This seems to me to be wholly applicable to the “Offensive Christianity” I spoke about earlier and our call to be bold in the face of a culture that is hostile to our worldview. To do otherwise is, in my opinion, to betray the very core of what we claim to value or, as Charles Peguy once put it:

“It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of looking insufficiently progressive.”

In Christianese, this amounts to being both in and of the world. This is not how it is supposed to work but, as Spencer rightly points out, it is exactly the kind of thing the American church (in general) has become …

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

There is no denying either of these facts. With encouraging but rare exceptions, I see these trends lived out in many ways on college and high school campuses, and in the pews and Sunday school classes of churches I visit. This is one reason the “New Atheist” onslaught has been so effective. Those targeted by it are unprepared to defend themselves against it — they grow to believe the atheists have a point. Listen to the confession of a believer-turned-atheist who has since returned again to the faith of his youth:

“I was raised in the church, went three times a week, went to private Christian schools, was active in youth ministry at my church, went to conferences, took nearly ten Bible courses, read my Bible, and attended Bible study regularly for several years, and yet the New Atheism sucked me in. As sad as it is, I think that the New Atheists say a whole lot more about the state and culture of modern Christianity than they do about themselves. As crazy as it may sound, the evidence that they put forward (as weak as it is) was intellectually much stronger than anything I had encountered in the Christian church.” (SALVO, Winter 2008, p. 29)

As you ponder that remember; this young man returned but he represents a tiny minority of those like him. Most leave and never look back. And we are woefully unprepared to stop the exodus.

I sincerely hope that those anti-intellectualists out there, who I run into from time to time, are listening. To deny and/or dismiss the intellectual component of our faith is not to exalt ourselves to a “more spiritual” realm. It is to give up on those who desire intellectual fulfillment and ignore the fact that we were, among other things, told to “love God with all our mind.” The proof that we have largely abandoned this exhortation is in the cultural pudding Spencer addresses here.

I agree with him. And if the collapse he envisions comes about, I believe this will be the major reason that it does.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about Ida (technical name: Darwinius masillae), the latest of the missing links that claims to “prove” the Evolutionary connection between we humans and our earliest ancestors.  Because the story has been so big in the news, I feel compelled to pause from the topic I have been pursuing and throw in a comment about it. The actual research report about the find can be read (here) but a quick summary of the scientific facts includes these characteristics that have made her so famous. Ida:

• has nails instead of claws
• does not have a “toothcomb” or a “grooming claw”
• has opposable thumbs
• has the dental features of a monkey
• has the ankle bone of a monkey, not a lemur

Ida, in other words, seem to be one of the first specimens of a group known as the haplorrhines which includes monkeys, the great apes and humans, that make her distinct from her lemur “cousins.” But even if that is true — and I have no reason to doubt that it is — I am no paleontologist or biology expert, but there are obvious discrepancies in the story that make me question the significance of this specimen.

First, Ida is 47 million years old. Even if full-blown Darwinian Evolution were true, her relationship to modern humans could not be described in any way as a “missing link.” Even Darwinists seem to agree that modern humans appeared on the scene at most 100,000 years ago. And the oldest hominids that we are presumed to have evolved from date to only 7 million years ago. So simple logic tells us that the missing link would be found between the more recent ancestors (the hominids) and us. Ida is a precursor to both, not a link between them.

Second, Ida is anything but a “new find.” She was discovered in 1983, split into two parts, and only recently pieced back together. The hype surrounding this story just happens to correspond with the release of the History Channel documentary about her and a book, “The Link,” that was released the same week (“… was $60.94, but you can get both the DVD and book today for just $48.75! …”). Ida, in other words, is little more than a marketing gimic.

Finally, this just seems to be another in a long line of empty promises about “missing links.” Evolutionary theory posits that we should find billions of such links all over the place. So it constantly amuses me when the media makes such a big deal about finding one. If the theory that proposes them is an indisputable fact — as we are constantly told — why would finding one of these intermediary fossils demand all the dramatic hoopla? It seems they celebrateth too much. My guess is that Ida will slowly be found to lead down the same path as Lucy – a find that at least promised some level of hope in demonstrating the human-ape link these folks so want to find — which was later shown to be a dead end.

I do not want to give the impression that no amount of evidence will convince me that common descent (CD) is true. I am always willing to look at the evidence. But so far, every find that proposes to “prove” CD requires that you assume it in order to see it in the evidence put forth. Beyond that, even if common descent does prove to be true, it does nothing to establish the molecules-to-man, naturalistic theory of Evolution or the design we find in even the simplest living organism.

I’m sure Ida’s a nice lady, but she doesn’t seem to be too promising as a potential relative.

Before I attempt any kind of comment on the predictions of Michael Spencer about The Coming Evangelical Collapse, I want to be fair about a few things surrounding the alleged “collapse” he is anticipating. So, in his own words, here are some of the disclaimers he offers to go along with the prediction.

1. I clearly said that evangelicalism was going to suffer a collapse, not at all meaning it would die. I said that HALF of evangelicals would be something else within 2-3 generations/10-20 years.
2. I clearly said I am not a researcher or a prophet.
3. I am all about church planting and new churches.
4. Megachurch evangelicalism will survive on size, not on fidelity to the Gospel.
5. Pentecostalism has more energy, not less problems. It is also more cross cultural and open to the work of the Spirit.

With these in mind, I would like to respond to a few specifics about why Spencer believes this is the future that awaits us. First …

1. 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.

Frankly, I am about sick of hearing this critique of evangelical Christianity. For one thing, the critique relies on an assumption that “investment in moral, social, and political issues” is a misplaced effort. Why? The Christian life is necessarily filled with moral, social and political aspects. If you doubt it, read Romans (especially chapters 1, 12 and 13 if you want direct evidence regarding these specific topics). The only way to avoid that fact is to somehow (and all too commonly) claim that Christianity is purely a “spiritual” endeavor. But nothing could be further from the truth. If the spirituality we proclaim stands disconnected from the life we live, we are not living the life Christ called us to. That life is a fully-orbed, holistic life of which our physical and social connection to the world is a necessary part. And, yes, this also includes an objectively moral facet that we have an obligation to defend.

This entire issue seems to stem from a fear of exclusivity that, ironically, Spencer seems to indirectly promote later in the piece. I’ll get to that later but for now I have to ask why exclusivity is so objectionable? Jesus was an exclusivist — and he professed exclusivity on exactly this issue when he said he was “The way, the truth and the life.” Not a way, or one way.

The way.

Secondly, the specific allegation that we “… have identified [our] movement with the culture war and with political conservatism” is an unavoidable consequence of the first point. The political miscues Spencer alludes to are nothing but a reflection of the reality of the political reality we share. The fact is that the “culture war” is a battle of ideas and political conservatism happens, for the most part, to be on the side of the Christian worldview. This is a far cry from saying that Christianity can only be represented by a single political party. But the ideas that matter are, in fact, on the side of a political philosophy which, I might point out, has not been upheld by any political party as of late.

I have often said that we should be practicing Offensive Christianity and I mean that in both senses. We need to quit apologizing for our faith and start promoting it apologetically. If we believe our faith is true, we would be morally negligent if we didn’t try to convince others to agree with us. If we are not willing to do that, it seems to me we don’t really believe it in the first place. We need to be assertive and get on the offensive in a winsome, courteous, respectful and charitable manner. If we don’t, we’re not really being evangelical at all.

But I also mean offensive in the other sense. Let’s face it, the culture we live in is hostile to objective morality, tolerant of fetal homicide and infanticide, relativistic about the truth, condoning of sexual perversion of all sorts, and sickeningly corrupt on both sides of the political aisle. Should we just accept these facts and be fine with them? I think not. In fact, if these are the traits that define our society — and if our faith is obviously antithetical to each of them — then we would be failing if the culture did not find us offensive. I can only hope to be “offensive” in that way.

If this makes Christianity take a stance against “cultural progress” (as Spencer puts it), so be it. We should wear that label as a badge of honor — no matter the effect on our “relevance” to the culture.

The following is the lead-in to an article entitled, “The Coming Evangelical Collapse,” that appeared in the March 10, 2009 edition of The Christian Science Monitor. Just as background, the author, a guy named Michael Spencer (the “Internet Monk”), is a well-educated, orthodox Christian pastor and writer of one of the most widely read and highly respected religious blogsites in the world.

If this doesn’t pique your interest in discipleship, I’m not sure what will. I would suggest going to read the article but if you don’t have time, at least read this intro. My plan is to do a short series in response to this piece. It has been very thought-provoking for me. Here is a summary of Michael’s prognostication. Check it out …

“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.

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.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I’m convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.”

There you have it. Think about the ramifications if Spencer is correct.  Does this scenario seem plausible to you? Likely? Inevitable? And, even if he is right, would it be a bad or good thing for the Christian church?

No doubt, it sounds kind of “scary” — but a look at why he makes this prediction, and a look back at history, are definitely in order. More to follow…