The Coming Collapse of Evangelicalism’s Vacillation
Michael Spencer hit a nerve with his sensationally-titled article, published in The Christian Science Monitor: “The Coming Evangelical Collapse.” He has a few valid points. But the reason he has a point and the reason he and most commentators on the article miss it are the same.
Jesus less sensationally said “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). Regardless of other implications, the one simple fact asserted in that statement is that there is always a point at which someone who thinks he is balancing two ultimate values must either choose between them or discard both acknowledging himself as the only real master.
Such is the case with evangelical Christianity. We cannot be both prophetic kingdom voice and servants to publicly evaluable success. Spencer’s observations of evangelicalism’s declining influence and troubled future seem accurate. His nebulously expressed desire for something with more cultural impact than declining denominations (for example) seems similarly appropriate.
But why? Because evangelicals fear irrelevance? “Irrelevance” is being thrown in a muddy pit because no one, neither the other prophets nor the political leaders, want to hear your message. “Irrelevance” is having your head handed to you on a platter while the political authorities you critiqued continue unabated.
Evangelicals, indeed all followers of Jesus, can only have one master—one they have admittedly pursued almost universally either too loosely or too clumsily: the clear, simple, hard, painful, complex, comforting, kind, gracious, eternal, consistent message of Scripture.
Nothing Spencer says directly contradicts that goal. But the truth of the matter is that some cultures will reject the message in such a way that it cannot be couched in an acceptable form. Is this culture there? Who knows?
But being relevant and being salable are not the same thing. And while it is hugely important that the message of Christian leaders be as relevant as Jeremiah’s and John the Baptist’s, whether it is salable or not is itself irrelevant—at least to those whose Master is one.
Tags: Relevance
Spot on, like usual. Thanks for pointing us to the one whose decision regarding relevance really matters, — our Master.