Internet Monk Radio Podcast #131

podcast_logo.gifThis week: Since “The Coming Evangelical Collapse:” Thoughts and Answering Ten Questions.

The Coming Evangelical Collapse: A Statistical Review Part 1, Part 2

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Riffs/CEC: The Antidote to the Coming Evangelical Collapse- Church Planting

UPDATE: What matters more? Being recognized by the ECUSA or the Anglican Church in Africa?

The Falls Church has a new daughter congregation and is starting more: A story of church planting in the new Anglican communion in Virginia.

This story of a commitment to church planting among the newly freed Anglicans in Virginia makes me very, very happy. This is the antidote to the coming evangelical collapse: church planting and a lot of it.

Listen my confessional, Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, etc brothers and sister: this is what must happen. Church planting that plants churches that plant churches. It will revitalize your church. It will put your priorities right. It will make the process of discipleship and Christian education come into sharp focus. It will keep your leaders from becoming ecclesiastical vegetables. It’s a very good thing. Do it.Continue reading “Riffs/CEC: The Antidote to the Coming Evangelical Collapse- Church Planting”

The iMonk on Steve Brown, Etc.

My favorite interview is always with Steve Brown, Etc. Here’s today’s episode, with yours truly as the interviewee.

If you aren’t regularly listening to this program, checking out the Guest Room and Steve’s Old White Guy blog, you’re missing some of the best content in the Christian blogosphere. (I never miss this show. It’s regularly provocative.)

BTW…I love Steve, but I did say Osteen isn’t one of us 🙂

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Recommendation and Review: UnChristian America: Living With Faith In A Nation That Never Was Under God by Michael Babcock

Interesting fact: Michael Babcock teaches humanities at Liberty University and has written a first class book saying the church’s emphasis on the culture war instead of the Gospel was a mistake.

Interesting fact: Even though Babcock is a creationist (a minor point in this book,) I haven’t read anyone who has put the errors of evangelicalism in its focus on the culture war more clearly or persuasively. Stereotypes fall apart in this book.

Interesting fact: Babcock is obviously an admirer of Jerry Falwell and deeply committed to the mission of America’s largest fundamentalist university, but he does a five-star job describing the quixotic ambitions of Falwell, Ralph Reed and many other culture warriors.Continue reading “Recommendation and Review: UnChristian America: Living With Faith In A Nation That Never Was Under God by Michael Babcock”

Riffs/CEC: A Third of ATS Seminaries Are In Financial Trouble

chapelUSA Today is on the ringside of the Coming Evangelical Collapse (CEC) with this story on the desperate situation facing a third of the schools on the Association of Theological Schools. (Page loads strangely in Firefox.)

Schools are closing, cutting back, combining, going on-line, selling facilities… the situation is serious. Many schools report less than a year of operating expenses on hand.

While I’m interested in what’s happening to these schools, I’m more interested in something else: where are the supporters who once kept these schools going?

That’s the question that evangelicals ought to be asking. Are we seeing a shrinking base of support for ministries? Or are those supporters simply taking a year off to deal with their own financial problems?Continue reading “Riffs/CEC: A Third of ATS Seminaries Are In Financial Trouble”

iMonk 101: November ’08: Alone and Not Alone

(From November of ’08. Part of what this web site is all about. And why some new readers may not exactly get it at first.)

We talk about the evangelical wilderness around here a lot. It’s sometimes academic, and sometimes it’s very personal to all of us. These are some of my thoughts from there today. If God has taught me anything, it’s that you (yes YOU) are out there, and I’m not the only one.

This post is for a particular group of people.

People who really don’t have any choices about what church you attend. Through circumstance or choice, you are a church monogamist, not a church shopper.

You may be a person in a rural area, and your church choices are extremely limited. Maybe, if you are conscientious about your use of fuel and time, your choices are non-existent.Continue reading “iMonk 101: November ’08: Alone and Not Alone”

iMonk 101: From January, ’08: “This is the End….”

jim-morrison_small.pngPosted this a little more than a year ago. Relevant to the recent discussions of the future of evangelicalism.

***Music by The Doors: “The End.”***

There was an elf that met the children at the door. Also in this room was a store that had Barbies, action figures, Brats Dolls, and all of the most popular items that you would find in a Toy-R-Us catalog the day after Thanksgiving. In order for kids to get the merchandise, they had to say a memory verse and earn store credits. The first thing my kids said to me when I went to pick them up was ”Daddy, can we start going to this church?” Can you blame them? For kids, this was a dream church.

If you listened to the interview I just did on Steve Brown, Etc., you may recall a moment when Steve and Eric asked me what was wrong with evangelicalism, and I said it was over. Steve gave a more hopeful view and I admitted that there were some hopeful signs out there, well off the media radar and among ordinary people.

Well Steve, it was a moment of weakness. You were being nice and I fell under your influence. But then I read C. Michael Patton’s post “The Entertainment Driven Church,” and I realized I was right: Evangelicalism is over. Long live post-evangelicalism. (Whatever we are/it is.)Continue reading “iMonk 101: From January, ’08: “This is the End….””

The Liturgical Gangstas 8: The Potluck

Welcome to IM’s popular feature, “The Liturgical Gangstas,” a panel discussion among different liturgical traditions represented in the Internet Monk audience.

Who are the Gangstas?

Father Ernesto Obregon is an Eastern Orthodox priest.
Rev. Peter Vance Matthews is an Anglican priest and founding pastor of an AMIA congregation.
Dr. Wyman Richardson is a pastor of a First Baptist Church (SBC) and director of Walking Together Ministries, a resource on church discipline.
Alan Creech is a Roman Catholic with background in the Emerging church and spiritual direction. (Alan’s not a priest. If he is, his wife and kids need to know.)
Rev. Matthew Johnson is a United Methodist pastor.
Rev. William Cwirla is a Lutheran pastor (LCMS) and one of the hosts of The God Whisperers, which is a podcast nearly as good as Internet Monk Radio.

Here’s this week’s question: What foods would be served at a potluck meal that most represented your church tradition?Continue reading “The Liturgical Gangstas 8: The Potluck”

Open Mic at the iMonk Cafe: Have You Ever “Lost It” in Church?

We’ve been so busy with all this political rhetoric (which I am totally tired of and won’t be revisiting anytime soon. Ugh) that we haven’t had our regular “Open Mic” post. So here’s our “open mic” question for this week:

Have you ever just “lost it” (i.e. found something unbearably funny) in church? Gotten so “tickled” that you had to leave? Found something so funny that it was all you could do to contain yourself from exploding with laughter? Well, what was it? We want in on the story.

What happened in church that was so funny you “lost it?”

The Evangelical Collapse: A Statistical Analysis Part II by Michael Bell

Guest Blogger Michael Bell (The Eclectic Christian) returns for his second round of statistical evaluations of “The Coming Evangelical Collapse.”

As I was time limited when taking my first statistical look at “The Coming Evangelical Collapse“, I wanted to follow up with a few more observations about some of Michael Spencer’s statements:

1. Denominations will shrink, even vanish.

Much to my surprise, the decline in evangelicals in the U.S. has already begun. The Association of Religious Data Archives (ARDA) lets you generate maps to visibly see the changes. The maps shown here show the difference in Evangelicals between 1990 and 2000. Note how the colors have lightened over 10 years, particularly in the south-east.Continue reading “The Evangelical Collapse: A Statistical Analysis Part II by Michael Bell”