·
Overview of The Great Evangelical Recession by
John Dickerson and its relevance to the ministry of Northminster Presbyterian
Church
o Dickerson
outlines and overviews six trends that are negatively impacting the evangelical
church and will, in all likelihood, continue to do so for the foreseeable
future.
“What follows is not depressing. It simply tests our loyalty.
While confronting these facts, we will be forced to
answer, again and again,
‘Am I more committed to evangelicalism as we know
it,
or to Jesus Christ, His kingdom, and His message?’” (p.
17)
o This
is a profound question and takes on even more relevance for us if we substitute
“Northminster Presbyterian Church” for “evangelicalism” in the above quotation.
1.
Inflated
a.
“The evangelical church in the United States is
not nearly as large as we’ve been told.” (p. 21)
b.
Evangelicals: between 7-9% of U.S. population
i. U.S.
population = 316 million
ii. Evangelicals
= 22-28 million
c.
“If the generational changes examined in the
upcoming chapters persist, evangelicals could drop to about 4 percent of the
population within three decades.
That is, in just under thirty years, we may only be 16 million of about
400 million Americans. That’s one
in every twenty-five Americans.” (p. 33)
2.
Hated
a.
There is an increasing hostility and
marginalization of Christians and the Christian message in the larger culture
b.
Dickerson suggests the following four points:
i. “The
broader ‘host’ culture of the United States is changing faster than most of us
realize.
ii. “The
direction of that change includes pro-homosexuality and anti-Christian
reactionism.
iii. “The
rate of cultural change in this direction will further accelerate as the oldest
two generations die, taking their traditional ‘American values’ and votes with
them.
iv. “These
changes will reach a point at which they directly affect church as we know it
and our lives as individual Christians.” (p. 41)
c.
“Right now, evangelicals account for a minority
of the United States population.
But a giant-chunk of Americans, most people over the age of fifty-five,
still see life through a quasi-Christian lens. They are the non-evangelicals who grew up in Sunday schools
of the 1940s to early ‘60s. Even
if their parents weren’t some sort of Christian, their friends or neighbors or
teachers were. They still had
prayer in their schools.
Intentional or not, they are the dam holding traditional American values
in place.” (p. 46)
d.
“For the next fifteen to twenty years, we will
see continued conservative resistance to the tides of pro-homosexuality and
anti-Christian prejudice. With
each passing year, however, the resistance will seem weaker and weaker. It will seem more desperate and less
relevant, because it will be.
“The
Americans who feel so strongly about these values are literally dying off and
disappearing. In a big sense,
their traditional American values will die with them. Even among Bible-believing evangelicals, the younger
generations do not universally embrace these national cultural battles as their
calling.
At
some point in the next twenty years, probably sooner, the culture will turn a
corner—at which point the same-sex marriage debates will be firmly decided
among the supermajority of Americans.” (p. 57)
3.
Dividing
a.
The disparate ages of evangelicals reflect a
differing conception over politics.
b.
“The precise evangelical focus on the gospel has
been lost in the muddy waters of politics, culture wars, and progressive
theology.” (p. 65)
c.
The younger, up-coming generation of
evangelicals is more interesting in social justice issues on the international
scene (e.g., sex-slave trafficking) than in traditional American culture war
issues from the conservative side.
d.
There is the growth of non-white evangelicals
that must be taken into account.
e.
“The divisions we’re seeing today result from
radically conflicting answers to the same question: ‘How do we respond to the
changing culture?’ The question
will become increasingly difficult to answer as the culture continues its
accelerating change.
“In
simple, broad strokes, here’s what we are already seeing and can likely expect
to continue seeing: Younger, coastal, highly educated, and metropolitan
evangelicals feel more and more strongly that we should abandon political
rhetoric and elevate the gospel by focusing on Jesus’ message to a
post-Christian culture that is not home.
They see the marriage of Jesus and the American flag as a pollution of
Christ, as nationalistic static and extra noise that distracts from Jesus and
His kingdom.
“At the same time, frightened by changes in United States culture,
middle-American, Bible-belt, suburban, and older evangelicals feel more and
more strongly that we need to ‘defend’ our rights in ‘our Christian
nation.’ They believe that we and
our elected officials are called to hold back the tide of spiritual darkness
through political influence. They
see the increasingly hostile host culture as a reason for further political
activism, not less.
“These
groups will split further and further apart as the culture continues
changing. Their reactionary
distancing will continue, because they have differing foundational views about
two emotionally charged issues.
First, they strongly disagree about America’s present status as a
Christian nation. They also have
conflicting foundational views about Christ’s methods and means for redeeming a
culture—whether human government is central to God’s plan today or peripheral
to it.” (pp. 76-77)
4.
Bankrupt
a.
The evangelical church is losing money and not
creating new givers.
b.
“North American evangelicals, while accounting
for less than 20 percent of the global evangelical church, hold 80 percent of
global evangelical wealth.” (p. 90)
c.
“By multiple accounts, American evangelical
donations are on course to drop by almost half in the next fourteen years and
by two-thirds in the next thirty years.” (p. 90)
d.
“Folks over age 75 give four times as much of
their income as 25-44-year olds, according to The State of Church Giving Through 2009. Each younger generation gives significantly less of its
income to ministry.” (p. 90)
|
Age
|
Percent given by
generation, of total donations
|
|
65+
|
46%
|
|
55-64
|
22%
|
|
45-54
|
17%
|
|
35-44
|
11%
|
|
Under age 35
|
4%
|
e.
“These figures show that as the current 45- to
54 –year olds become the older generation, there will still be some vitality of
giving (particularly as they inherit their parents’ wealth). But unless those under the age 44
change their values as they age, the evangelical juggernaut will crumble as the
younger generations inherit their parents’ and grandparents’ $41 trillion in
wealth.” (p. 92)
5.
Bleeding
a.
Youth are leaving the evangelical church in
their 20s and a majority of them never return.
b.
Half of those born into evangelicalism leave in
their 20s and 65% do not return.
c.
“Of the 3.7 million United States evangelicals
who are eighteen to twenty-nine years old, 2.6 million will leave the faith at
some point between their eighteenth
and twenty-ninth birthdays.
That’s 260,000 who leave each year. That’s 712 who will quit the faith
today, another 712 tomorrow, and so forth.” (p. 103)
d.
“Of the 2.6 million who leave, about 900,000
will eventually return, later in life.
About 1.7 million will not return to an evangelical church, based on the
evidence we have so far.” (p. 104)
e.
“If this rate of departure continues to the next
generation of 18-29-year olds (and the evidence indicates it will), then about
5 million people will have left the United States church between the years 2007
and 2027. That’s 5 million departed
from a church of about 22 million.
About 3.4 million of them will never return.” (p. 104)
6.
Sputtering
a.
The evangelical church is not making disciples
to keep up with population growth.
b.
“Arizona is an example of apparent growth. From 2000-2005, attendance at
evangelical churches in Arizona increased by 1.5 percent, but it did not
actually keep pace with a population growth of 3.5 percent.” (p. 118)
