The coming evangelical crisis

Michael Spencer has written a very good evaluation of the evangelical collapse in America that is worth reading. He says:

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.

In his reasons of why this collapse will happen he lists:

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.

Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

From his list of what will be left after the collapse he mentions:

Evangelicalism needs a “rescue mission” from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?

I whole heartedly agree that Evangelicalism needs to be rescued. I expect missionaries from China and South Korea to come to the United States to evangelize the lost. I recall mentioning this same rescue mission to pastors in New Dehli, India some years ago and they laughed at the idea that America, the city on a hill, will need missionaries!

My only disagreement would be the tense that Michael Spencer has used. I don’t believe the collapse will happen. I believe the collapse has happened.