The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church

I must give this book five stars, not because I find in it orthodox, spiritual guidance, but because Christine has done an outstanding job of research and clear presentation. While I am not a fan of a few of her endorsers, I am of others. I will join that chorus as well, but in the context of what I present below. I would break the book into three parts. The first part describes the ethos of many evangelical churches. The second part is her explanation of how a 21st century secular person sees these evangelical people and the strange rules and perspectives that are not only strange to them, but irrelevant to them. The third section of the book is her continued personal disclosure of where she goes with this information. The first two sections of this book are simply outstanding. I, too, grew up in the Southern Baptist world in the southwest. Her detailed imagery of the operations, lifestyles, church cultures, and especially the motivations she describes brought cold chills down my arm. She expressed these details with unparalled congruency with my own experiences. I believe that anyone reading this section of the book would have a superb grasp of what it is like in that world. She chronicles many stories of people's lives who have been transformed by their faith in God through Jesus Christ and connection with evangelical communities that are loving and reaching out to help others at their point of need. She has no tone of mockery and never questions the sincerity or integrity of the persons about whom she is reporting. The second section is equally well researched and written in so far as it addresses the widespread secular understanding of truth. She explains the way of thinking of millions of Americans, sadly, including many people in America that consider themselves "spiritual" but not necessarily "Christian." The reason I think this is important is that I don't think many passionate evangelical church pastors or church attenders have a clue about this nearly universal way of thinking - without any need for God in their lives. If one does not understand the culture, they cannot connect with the people who are of that culture. What I felt was lacking in this section of the book was a critical assessment of the weakness in this perspective. This might be somewhat beyond the scope of what she wanted to cover, yet she seems to ultimately embrace most (but certainly not all) of this point of view. "Truth became provable, a verifiable proposition, not a tablet of rules, not a private vision, not a dream, not a proclamation from someone in power." (p. 153) She does not challenge the assertion that truth can be proven through reason and science and instead pits faith against reason. Completely absent are the historic facts that the founders of modern science were most typically committed Christians who saw science as the discovery process of God's handiwork. Certainly Kepler and Newton would have felt strongly this way. Also absent

I found this book to be interesting in that it includes plenty of statistics about the Christian, or especially, Evangelical churches in the U.S., with some numbers being estimated out of necessity. A part of me was a bit relieved to learn that the political influence of this group is probably overestimated by many, but it seemed sad to me in a way. I think this book would be worth reading if you want a good overview of the state of this particular segment of our society.

The movie The Bucket List is a moving tale about two people who meet in the hospital, both having been diagnosed shortly before with terminal cancer, and given 6 months to maybe a year to live. I happened to watch the movie at just about the same time as I read and finished Christine Wicker's book The Fall of the Evangelical Nation (New York: HarperOne, 2008). Since her book suggests that Evangelicalism in America is also a terminal case, I thought it would be interesting to reflect on the movie and the book together. Indeed, since the very notion of a "bucket list" is to consider what you'd most want to do before you "kick the bucket", it seems that it might be appropriate for Evangelicalism to start working on its own "bucket list". Evangelicalism has, of course, always placed an awareness of mortality quite central to its message. Indeed, the challenge "If you died tonight, would you go to heaven?" is a staple of Evangelical preaching. But that is a matter of individual mortality. What should the Evangelical movement in the fundamentalist form it has taken throughout much of the twentieth century do in the face of the possible death of the movement? Is it confident that it will be viewed by God in a way that merits a "Well done, good and faithful servant"? Will it be remembered by future generations of humans as a blessing or a blight on human history? Of course, Evangelicals have become well trained at ignoring popular opinion, and that is at once a great strength (since the majority is often wrong) and a great weakness (inability to hear criticism has certainly been known to contibute to an early demise). Wicker's book is about the fact that Evangelical Fundamentalists or "the Religious Right" are not as numerous, and are not doing nearly as well as their publicity would have us believe. Wicker's investigations led her to learn from the statistics and spokespeople of various denominations that their numbers were inflated. While some claimed as many as one in four Americans was an Evangelical, it turned out that double counting, counting those coming in but not taking notice of departures, "sheep shuffling" and other factors suggest that those who actually hold a bare minimum of fundamentalist religious beliefs are perhaps 7% of Americans, and a quarter of the numbers claimed by and perhaps in some way associated with Evangelical churches. And in terms of their moral behavior, there are few statistical differences between Evangelicals and others, and that seems to have been the case as long as statistics have been kept. What that means is that Evangelicals have made claims to be different, to be upright in a way that the rest of society is not, that do not correspond to reality (pp.80-82). When a major "conservative" figure is caught in hypocrisy, we should not be surprised. What is remarkable is that, when so many have been caught, the myth of difference and the facades that often hinder rather than help it continue. Among the shocking su

Again, another brilliantly written book by Christine Wicker. Both sides are fairly depicted, and an amazing and informative read.

This is an important book by a veteran observer of American religious life -- explaining in plain, convincing terms why a lot of our assumptions about the power of "evangelicals" and "megachurches" are myths. If you're inside this movement yourself, Wicker's book almost certainly will open your eyes to the fragile nature of your movement and your style of doing church. Wicker is a veteran religion writer, who reported on staff at the Dallas Morning News for a number of years. She's also the well-received author of a couple of earlier books on America's spiritual culture. Her 2003 book, "Lily Dale: The Town That Talks to the Dead (Plus)," examined Americans' fascination with "Spiritualists" that stretches back at least 130 years. That turned into a best seller and received a lot of media attention. Later, she wrote a book, "Not In Kansas Anymore: Dark Arts, Sex Spells, Money Magic, and Other Things Your Neighbors Aren't Telling You (Plus)," about Americans' long-running interest in, at least occasionally, dabbling in eccentric traditions. Now, she's back with this book-length examination of America's large evangelical movement -- scraping away at the often fearsome political veneer that, she argues persuasively, some very sharp political operatives have draped over the surface of a major segment of American churches. There's an angry edge to the opening section of this book in which she takes these political operatives to task. In fact, some of Wicker's opening lines are written with, we might say, journalistic hyperbole. Here's an example. She argues in the Introduction: "Evangelical Christianity in America is dying," and, "Nobody knows what to do about it." Well, it's clear that evangelicals will survive, even if their community shrinks as it shakes itself out. We've still got remnants of religious movements that have survived thousands of years. Evangelicals won't become extinct. And, concerning that second line: It's also obvious that lots of people think they know what to do about this. Jim Wallis (author of "The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America") certainly does, so does Ken Wilson (author of "Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back") -- and so do many other prophetic voices emerging in the evangelical world. Don't let the sharpness of that opening edge or those overly broad statements dissuade you from reading this terrific book. Wicker knows this field after years as a journalist specializing in covering religion. And you'll find that, even though the book opens in anger, it winds up turning for home with a remarkably compassionate voice. Toward the end of her book, she points out to readers that many of us probably have had doubts, questions and alternative interpretations kicking around in our hearts and minds for years -- and, finally, we're reaching a point at which we don't have to blindly accept an authority figure dictating doctrine to us. We're all on a search in this e