The Evangelical Decline and Other Interesting Links
Monday, June 23, 2008 at 03:11PM 
Here's yet another sad sign of the evangelical decline. An amazing 57% of those who attend evangelical churches now say they believe that adherents of non-Christian religions might also be saved. The more people anchor their faith in the subjective (religious experience), the less likely they are to see evangelical Christianity as a truth claim. Some of us are hardly surprised by this news. Saddened, yes. But not surprised. Click here: Religious Americans: My faith isn't the only way (OneNewsNow.com)
The PCUSA continues to lose members--some 57,000 last year alone (that's about the same number of people in the OPC/URC combined). The loss is blamed on the church's liberal theology and blue hair--the church's aging membership. Many congregations have left to join the EPC. If you don't give people a reason to stay in your church, they won't. The PCUSA isn't alone in this. The Methodist Church has lost 23% of its membership since 1970, and the Episcopal Church is down 33% since the mid-sixties. Of course, what these churches need is more liberal theology and "contemporary worship."
Here's a noted theologian/writer who believes that Jesus will return within the next 20-25 years. That's not out of the ordinary. The catch? Harun Yahya is a Muslim (widely read around in the Muslim world) who believes that when Jesus comes back it will be as the Islamic Mahdi and a champion of the prophet Mohammed. This is typical Islamic doctrine, but Yahya is as successful (in terms of sales) as Tim LaHaye. That means a series of Islamic novels about the end times is sure to come. Click here: Muslim creationist preaches Islam and awaits Christ - Yahoo! News
How many stories like this one will we read about before the presidential election in November? Here's a preacher who told his congregation that God wanted them to vote republican. That's bad enough. It gets worse. He was doing this to provoke an IRS investigation, hoping for a court fight. Shouldn't a guy like this be looking for a new line of work? He's obviously failed in his calling to preach the gospel. And if he wants to change things so badly, why not just run for political office (an honorable calling), rather than commit such atrocious behavior in the pulpit. Click here: ABC News: Pastors Use Pulpit to Challenge Election Law
Reader Comments (19)
I am a regular listener of the White Horse Inn, but I only recently stumbled onto your blog. I have been enjoying it thoroughly - keep up the good work!
Oh that's what Peter was hinting at , "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men...." or Paul, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."
I must have been misunderstanding them all this time. ☻
www.fbcbridgewater.org
As God enables I preach Christ and Him crucified.
(Is it wrong to lean toward McCain because he will re-up NCLB [Obama won’t], thereby ensuring job security for me? Or do I really have to get all Methodist-misty-eyed about abortion and gay marriage, two things that have no bearing on my immediate life? I suppose some would render it impious to actually seek that which will prolong working with my hands, minding my own business and providing for my own.)
The Courage To Be A Protestant by David Wells. I am about half way through. Dr. Wells provides explanations for the above article's statistics.
"...Now what the U.S.A. really needs is another churchy buzzword to rally around--like "missional." Bureaucrat's and other professionals love this because it relieves them of having to study hard, think hard and preach the law and the gospel...."
One of denomination already seems to have a new buzzword like this; it's called "Ablaze"...
ME too, me too. At least when I'm not mindlessly bouncing around the Interweb thing.
>"Ablaze"...
calls up a mental image of the lake 'o fire.
The dramatic decline in the PCUSA should give us some pause. The PCUSA has lost more members in the past 10 years than belong to all of the NAPARC churches combined. This reflects the truth that their continued decline is not simply a matter of people leaving the PCUSA for the PCA.
Given that the U.S. has 50 Billion more people today than we did in 1990 - this also casts a light on how poorly the NAPARC churches are doing in terms of reaching our generation for Christ. Since God is absolutely sovereign, we must strongly avoid identifying numerical church growth with faithfulness. But should we be quick to identify a lack of growth with our doctrinal faithfulness?
The LORD has given us an enormous opportunity to proclaim the gospel in North America and around the world. Yet we can hardly claim that we are being sacrificially faithful to this task. Rather than pointing to the obvious problems in the PCUSA, perhaps it is we who need to repent.
Your brother,
David
There are many churches in the PCA and OPC that have either closed in this decade or are declining in membership and averaging less than 100.
Why?
for fear of being to overly simplistic, I pause to give one answer.
But one thing I've certainly observed:
Many PCA and OPC churches 30 years ago were so satisfied to be "conservative" not "liberal" like the PCUSA, UMC, ECUSA ELCA, etc..
Yet they missed that the church does indeed have marching orders to be outwardly "on mission" to their cities.
They proudly waved the flag of cultural and theological conservatism all the while not waving the flag highly that proclaimed the gospel to their dying city.
Sounds like a job for....
I'll let Zrim finish the sentence.