In previous lectures, we have talked about the erosion of shared values within American culture in recent years. Whereas there once was a time when state, home, and church formed a consortium that worked to instill a common set of religious values, that is becoming increasingly rare. At one time, people grew up religious simply because they were lucky enough to be born in places like Winston-Salem, Marion, Clinton, Atlanta, or Jacksonville. People looked out and saw a world that was good and right, and the values that children were taught at home were reinforced in Sunday or Sabbath School, as well as in the public school classroom.

If one conceives of the home, church and school as the three legs supporting this social structure--this "religious" world-view--one can begin to see why the U.S. Supreme Court decisions outlawing "state sponsored" school prayer were so threatening to large numbers of Americans. It removed one of the legs of the stool. With the role of the church in society increasingly weakened by the increased competition for people's time and energy, the idea of a Christian society no longer had the necessary support to sustain itself. The result has been an increasing secularism, and a decline in the ability of the church to shape its social environment.

I have also spoken in previous classes about the Church as an aging dowager (see Lecture 24: "The Church in Decline") living at the edge of town, unaware that no one is paying it much attention any more. But that hasn't kept it from trying to continue on as if nothing has changed.

There are many, however, who still deceive themselves into believing that if they elect a few more "Christian" senators, if they can pass a few new laws, or tinker with the state and federal budget to end the funding of abortion, that we will be able to form a new "Christian" culture. They long to restore the old social order--the golden age of the church culture--when church, state, and home cooperated to craft good citizens and good Christians. Such efforts are naive, and ultimately doomed to fail.

The Main-line Becomes the Old-line

We live in interesting times. Today, the mainline denominations that have dominated American religious history continue to exercise tremendous influence. But quite literally, these older, established churches, are showing the signs of their age. The rivalries that have come to dominate Southern Baptist life--for instance--are simply the symptoms of a denomination that has lost its sense of mission, and its connectedness to the pulse of the people. Southern Baptists are debating and fighting among themselves as to who will steer the canoe, all the while the current of the larger society is sweeping them toward the waterfall. It won't matter who has their hand on the rudder when they go over.

Southern Baptists share something in common with other denominations that are less riven by internal dissension: many of their churches are quite literally aging dowagers. There is a ticking time bomb in many of the mainline denominations. Over the next 30 years, large numbers of mainline churches will close because the aging congregations who worship there now will have disappeared. In many of these congregations, the youngest participants are 55-60 years of age. Over time, they will simply be unable to sustain themselves.

Many of the mainline denominations had hoped for an infusion of new life from the Baby Boom Generation as it aged, had children, and became interested in the church once again. That influx has not happened to the degree many had expected, and where it has, the institutional church has had great difficulty accommodating these individuals. The new generation does not speak the language of commitment and responsibility of the earlier Great Depression and World War II generation, and are not motivated by the language of guilt, duty, or obligation. In fact, they are repealed by it. The result has been that many of those Baby Boomers who dropped into the church, have dropped back out, and are now exploring their spirituality privately. Only a few isolated congregations have been able to learn the new language of mission that is required to reach these individuals.

Where does this leave the main-line--now old-line--churches? They are becoming an endangered species. The white, upper income to middle income, Protestant is declining in numbers. The world is becoming increasingly diverse culturally, racially, and it is also becoming increasingly unchurched. It is becoming more and more hostile toward Christianity, and will only become more so in the twenty-first century. If mainline churches continue to refuse to adjust to the changed situation they find themselves in, they will not just be an endangered species, they will go the way of the dinosaurs.

Unfortunately Things Aren't Likely to Get Easier

While many in America's denominations long for the golden past when the cultural environment was nurturing and supportive, these dinosaurs will have to learn to adapt to a world that will be increasingly hostile, not less. Consider these realities:

(1) In coming years, Protestants will begin to face the same short-fall in clergy that Catholics are now experiencing. Much of the current supply of clergy are middle aged or older, and the absence of the Baby Boom in America's congregations means younger candidates for ministry are becoming scarcer.

(2) Christian-bashing will be one of the few acceptable forms of discrimination. Already in the media clergy are painted as greedy, hypocrites. The Judeo-Christian world view will be increasingly challenged by New Age religion, the religion of technology, and humanism.

(3) "Few people will believe in any form of ultimate truth in the emerging world because the definition of truth is changing," says Bill Easum. Previously, truth has been defined by religion and faith. In the future, truth will be defined by whatever works.

(4) Moral standards will be largely individualistic. Ethics will be defined by whatever is good for the individual. The family will be the place these changes will be most pronounced. To quote Easum: "Presently, the United States Census Bureau defines family as a group of two or more persons related by birth, marriage, or adoption residing together. In the emerging world, the family will be defined as any group of two or more people who intentionally live together for the purpose of loving and caring for each other regardless of gender or time commitment. It will not be considered normal to live a lifetime with one spouse. People will marry solely for what they personally can gain from it."

(5) "The majority of people will tend to withdraw physically and psychologically" into the campus, the suburb, or small groups. People will be less willing to look to large institutions like churches to meet their needs.

(6) "By the year 2001, one in four people in America will be nonwhite, making the emerging society the most diverse ever. Today, the culturally disadvantaged are those young white people raised in the suburbs who are able to converse in only one language. The emerging world will no longer be dominated by white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. White-skinned North Americans will experience the same kind of negative treatment they gave to those of different colored skin. Interracial marriages will produce many of the North American babies born in the emerging world.

(7) The male dominated world is disappearing. "A new set of women's values will dominate all areas of life. Day care, maternity/paternity leave, and full and part-time jobs both at home and away will become common."

(8) As this course sometimes demonstrates, "the transmission and reception of knowledge and information are experiencing a series of quantum leaps. Computers are totally changing the way we treat knowledge...In the emerging world, knowing how to process knowledge rather than collecting, storing, and retrieving knowledge will be the primary skill. People will have less need of memory or writing skills...Sequential, linear, rational, deductive thinking will continue to disappear."

Given the degree of change that will be necessary, only those denominations and congregations that are truly flexible, and can address themselves to this new context will survive.

A New Evangelicalism

There are, however, growing numbers within the religious community who are waking up to the fact that the world has changed profoundly and will continue to change, and that the Church must learn to live with the fact that it has extremely effective competition for people's time, energy, and money. These religious leaders celebrate that the old cultural captivity is over, and that the Church no longer has to support the existing social order. They feel liberated to discover new paradigms, to discover the Church God is calling them to be.

Within the nation at large, there is a growing effort to develop a new and better church. One sees it taking shape in para-church organizations on college campuses like Campus Crusade, Intervarsity, or Young Life. One sees it taking shape in large ecumenical movements like Promise Keepers. These groups are not affiliated with any of the existing denominations, and are seen by the denominations as rival organizations. And they are. The older bureaucratic paradigm of the church--that assumed a churched culture where people gave and supported the Church out of obligation and a sense of responsibility--is breaking down. Resources are drying up. They are giving way to decentralized small groups of people engaged in ministry like Habitat For Humanity. Instead of financial resources flowing to the denominational hierarchy, they are staying closer to home where they can be used in such "hands on" endeavors.

One could best describe these new efforts as the New Evangelicalism. It is Evangelicalism with a capital E, not evangelicalism that aggressively seeks to win the lost. One's spiritual status--whether one is lost or saved, hell-bound or on the way to heaven--is not the orientation of these new groups. Instead the focus is on the authority of Scripture, the serious study of Scripture, and application of Scripture to real life problems. Slowly, but surely, the emphasis is shifting from what religion can do for me to what I can do to help others.

This is in stark contrast to traditional churches. There the focus is on serving the needs of those who are already present. In these churches one continues to hear sermons about the needs of the institution, or the obligations and responsibility of parishioners to pay the denominational askings. In churches shaped by the New Evangelicalism the baggage of denominationalism is discarded, and the focus becomes God's grace. One gives not out of obligation or responsibility, but out of a desire to be caring and compassionate. Sermons help people to see one of the great paradoxes of the gospel: we help ourselves best, when we help others. The message of the New Evangelicalism is couched in the language of the mission field, not the churched culture. It is a message that is focused on reaching the growing numbers of people who are not part of any church.

The Fourth Awakening

The impact of the changes coming to our society, and the efforts of the New Evangelicals to meet these changes, may be a Fourth Great Awakening. When millions of men feel drawn to participate in Promise Keepers or the Million Man March, it suggests that there is a tremendous spiritual need abroad in the land that mainline/oldline denominations are not, and will not meet. The first and second Awakenings came in response to a time of revolutionary change. Will history repeat itself?