Letter from America

Various trends within evangelicalism, and the surrounding culture, seem to be combining to present, if not the perfect storm, at least a tipping point where things could either move forward in exciting new ways or backwards alarmingly.

David Olson, the director of the American Church Research Project, has come out with a new book called The American Church in Crisis. In this book he catalogues the gradual decline in church attendance in America, and predicts that by 2050 there will be around 10% of the population in church. You can find an interview of Olson at http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2009/feb/28/study-finds-attendance-at-churches-still-falling/living/ In a slightly different take on the same issue, the Southern Baptist pastor Bob Pearle has written The Vanishing Church. He writes that the biblical church in America is being replaced with ‘Wal-Mart’ churches which are geared towards providing what their consumers want. There’s a discussion of this book at http://www.star-telegram.com/religion/story/1230235.html

A moment of decision

Those two books (The American Church in Crisis and The Vanishing Church) are just a snapshot of a much wider discussion and challenge. But, taken together with the even more compelling, and at least equally challenging, state of the American economy, we seem to be at a moment of decision for much of the American church. How will it respond to the economic crisis? Will the prosperity gospel bury its head in the sand as the prosperity in its gospel diminishes? Will feel-good and gospel-lite messages cut it in a time of uncertainty? In previous economic crises the church has had both opportunity and threat. The 1929 Great Depression seemed to decimate much of the church, but the church that it decimated was the liberal church, and the burgeoning evangelical movement grew and spread from those days. The economic crisis of 1856, which led to 30,000 businessmen on the streets in New York, was responded to with a call to prayer by one New York businessman, which prayer meetings historians believe sparked massive revival throughout America and was influential on the ministry of one former Chicago businessman, D.L. Moody.

Light in the darkness

Perhaps it is the best of times and the worst of times. There are theological issues of great subtlety that lead unwary minds up the garden path. And at the same time the Lord has seen fit to bring us down to earth from our highfalutin discussions with the shock of economic reality.

The gospel preaching and Bible teaching churches are growing. People are getting converted. And so in the darkness there is light. And our theological model for all of this is, as always, that of Christ himself, whose mind we are to have within us. As he was sent into the world, to be in but not of it, so we are to be sent also, in the power of his Spirit, and with his Word on our lips. We need to, as it were, be incarnate in our culture, neither compromised by it, nor defined by it, but transcending it and a redeeming influence within it.

Acts 17, Paul’s discussion at the Areopagus, has long been touted as the model for evangelism among postmoderns, and in many ways it is, with Paul’s sophisticated and subtle response to the philosophies he encountered in that enlightened city of Athens. But, with that sophistication we also need to combine a gritty reality. With all the gore, blood, fear, uncertainty, cultural suspicion of the hypocrisy of Christians, we may also need to model ourselves on the gore, blood, and downright humiliation of a screaming baby in a manger.

Church with no thrills

Some of the folk I’ve seen come to Christ from heavily secular and sophisticated non-Christian backgrounds seem to have had this combination. The church has been unashamedly preaching lengthy expository sermons and just, well, being church with no thrills. And yet there’s been an earthiness to their experience of God, as it were. I’m thinking of one man in particular whose journey to faith began by being offered a beer by a pastor. It so blew his categories that he decided he’d better try and figure out what was going on.

A dose of salts

Conversion is never replicable by human technique. And I’m certainly not suggesting that that is slavishly copied. But as the American church faces both unparalleled challenges as well as unique opportunities, there is this tipping point. Will evangelicals keep moving downstream towards cultural compromise? Will they continue to stop fishing and start becoming fish? In other words, will we see the emergence of a new, but basically the same, kind of liberalism following the latest trendy ideas and business models? Or will this economic slap in the face be the dose of salts to make the evangelical movement realise that the answer is the hard-nosed (even when sophisticated) ‘evangel’ — that is the gospel? If it’s the latter, the church will have tipped off onto a new adventure of growth and dynamism. If the former, we cave into the pressure around us, then, well, God help us. Either way, we’re certainly going to need his help.

Josh Moody,
Wheaton, Illinois

© Evangelicals Now - April 2009
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