Prescott, Ariz.
IT hasn’t been a good year for evangelicals. I should know. I’m one of them.
In 2012 we witnessed a collapse in American evangelicalism. The old
religious right largely failed to affect the Republican primaries, much
less the presidential election. Last month, Americans voted in favor of
same-sex marriage in four states, while Florida voters rejected an
amendment to restrict abortion.
Much has been said about conservative Christians and their need to
retool politically. But that is a smaller story, riding on the back of a
larger reality: Evangelicalism as we knew it in the 20th century is
disintegrating.
In 2011 the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life polled church leaders
from around the world. Evangelical ministers from the United States
reported a greater loss of influence than church leaders from any other
country — with some 82 percent indicating that their movement was losing
ground.
I grew up hearing tales of my grandfather, a pastor, praying with
President Ronald Reagan at the White House. My father, also a pastor,
prayed with George W. Bush in 2000. I now minister to my own
congregation, which has grown to about 500, a tenfold increase, in the
last four years (by God’s favor and grace, I believe). But, like most
young evangelical ministers, I am less concerned with politics than with
the exodus of my generation from the church.
Studies from established evangelical polling organizations — LifeWay
Research, an affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Barna
Group — have found that a majority of young people raised as
evangelicals are quitting church, and often the faith, entirely.
As a contemporary of this generation (I’m 30), I embarked three years
ago on a project to document the health of evangelical Christianity in
the United States. I did this research not only as an insider, but also
as a former investigative journalist for an alt weekly.
I found that the structural supports of evangelicalism are quivering as a
result of ground-shaking changes in American culture. Strategies that
served evangelicals well just 15 years ago are now self- destructive.
The more that evangelicals attempt to correct course, the more they
splinter their movement. In coming years we will see the old
evangelicalism whimper and wane.
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