Important Takeaways:
- The Rise and Fall of Evangelical America
- In the parable of the sower, Jesus illustrated how the seed of God’s Word flourishes or perishes depending on the kind of ground it falls on. Some seeds fell on a path, and birds ate them. Some fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the seedlings. “Other seeds,” said Jesus, “fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away.”
- That rocky soil group aptly describes the rapid rise and decline of evangelicals in America in recent decades. Recently, political scientist Ryan Burge, co-author of The Great Dechurching, explained how, between 1983 and 1993, the share of Americans who identified as evangelicals exploded. In fact, at their height in the early ’90s, nearly a third of Americans called themselves evangelical.
- Part of the story of what happened is the rise of the “nones,” those who claim no religious affiliation. Between 1991 and today, the percentage of Americans who identify as “nones” skyrocketed from 6% to 29%. Burge calls this “the most significant shift in American society over the last thirty years.”
- Perhaps, given how quickly the evangelical bubble burst, part of the problem was that it was filled with shallow belief. Or to switch back to Jesus’ metaphor, perhaps some of the seeds that came up so quickly in the final decades of the 20th century—amid chart-topping Christian albums, huge music festivals, and sprouting non-denominational megachurches—lacked deep roots.
- Jesus never told us that the goal was to get bodies through the doors or bottoms in the chairs. It was to make disciples committed to Christ and His Kingdom—disciples who would in turn “bear much fruit.”
- This means teaching the Bible as if it is the true account of reality, contrasting a biblical understanding of things with those widely accepted, meeting challenges from the wider culture head-on, answering tough questions about the faith, teaching Christians to take seriously Christ’s sovereignty over all of life, belonging and not merely attending church, and teaching worship as everything we do, not just when we sing.
- It also means recognizing the role cultural currents play in eroding faith—especially those undermining marriage and the family. As Mary Eberstadt wrote almost 10 years ago in How the West Really Lost God, one of the most powerful forces behind secularization and the rise of the “nones” is the decline of the family
- That’s why, despite evangelical decline in America, we continue to till the soil and trust the Sower, fully believing He can produce deeper roots than before and fully expecting the hundredfold harvest He described.
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