The Coming Evangelical Collapse

The Internet Monk (Michael Spenser) has a great article in the Christian Science Monitor (on-line and in print): The Coming Evangelical Collapse. It’s a great piece, really good food for thought.

His article (actually allot of his blogging) has led me to two conclusions:

• I’m not ready to give up being an evangelical yet. There are some good things about this tradition that I think can and need to be salvaged from the “circus”: Gospel driven, personal experience of faith and conversion, a life transformed by the power of the spirit, being founded in the Bible not tradition. These things need to be celebrated and liberated from all the other crap. Everything else, the individualization of faith, the moralist thinking and culture war, idolizing the Bible, the lack of good kingdom theology (or good theology in general)… these things need to be thrown off and left to die.

• I’m not ready to give up on the emerging church yet. I really think that there has been much methodological reform birthed from the this movement and discussion. But, I think that most of the discussion has become solely about our church methods and our presence in social justice. Good parts of the discussion, but not all of the discussion at all. There needs to be a re-thinking of theology, a theological reform. I believe that the emerging church discussion/movement can and should be the catalyst to that. And I don’t believe it’s too late

More on this later… when I get my brain a bit more ordered.