The Internet is abuzz with the latest prognostications about “the coming evangelical collapse.” This is the substance of three blog posts over at Internet Monk (a.k.a. Michael Spencer), who predicts said collapse in ten years. When his thoughts got picked up and condensed by the Christian Science Monitor and then the Drudge Report ”” well, you can just imagine the electronic excitement.
The title of Spencer’s posts spoils the ending; still, many of the details are interesting. I’ve made many of the same observations in this column. For example, Spencer writes, “Expect evangelicalism as a whole to look more and more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth-oriented megachurches that have defined success. The determination to follow in the methodological steps of numerically successful churches will be greater than ever. The result will be, in the main, a departure from doctrine to more and more emphasis on relevance, motivation and personal success.” My only caveat here is to wonder if this is a future or present reality.
I think Galli is far closer to the mark than the internet monk in this case. Particularly accurate is his comment that people are moving more toward non-denominational evangelicalism than toward liturgical forms.
[blockquote]Particularly accurate is his comment that people are moving more toward non-denominational evangelicalism than toward liturgical forms.[/blockquote]
This is probably true, and yet I do find a growing appreciation within Evangelicalism of some of the liturgical and spiritual aspects of the catholic tradition. For instance, the Daily Office and Lectio Divina are shared with D.Min. students in their first class through Fuller Seminary, and my local Nazarene pastor and his worship team came to experience pretty formal liturgy at our place on Ash Wednesday and loved the richness of the service.
Nevertheless, such catholic aspects are just options and spiritual styles to be mixed and matched, disconnected with any overarching theological vision that unifies such practice into an integrated whole. Pragmatism still prevails, rather than viewing such practices as the time tested embodiment of the faith of the Church. I am reminded of David Brooks’ concept of “flexidoxy” in [i]Bobos in Paradise[/i].
One wonders if Anglicanism has been the precursor of such a use of our spiritual and liturgical heritage while eschewing a coherent theological core in the name of comprehensiveness. Rather than being constitutive of Christian life, such practices become extensions of our own perceived needs and appetites.
Just wondering.