One startling truth about the past 60 years of American social life is the collapse of Mainline Protestantism. In 1965, more than 50 percent of Americans belonged to the country’s historic Protestant congregations. Now less than 10 percent do, and that number continues to drop.
The second startling truth about the past 60 years is how the Evangelical movement, which was designed to be a via media between Mainline Protestantism and Fundamentalism, has completely capitulated to the old mindset of Mainline Protestantism. Indeed, one could even say that Mainline Protestantism lives on in Evangelicalism.
One suspects, as one looks to the future, that the new movement of “Neo-Calvinism” as the new via media between Old Line Historic Calvinism and Evangelicalism will likewise fail. It’s leaders show no more promise than the Harold J. Ockenga’s and D. Martyn Lloyd Jones’ of old, who were so instrumental in forming Evangelicalism.
The only answer is to quit trying to form movements which keep trying to keep one foot in the enemy camp. Whether we consider the Mainline Protestantism of old, or the Evangelical response, or the current Neo-Calvinism, what we see is that the attempt to present ourselves as reasonable to the enemy never ends well.
These movements are destroying the church in their quest to reach the lost. In seeking converts they are only giving unbelief a patina of Christian respectability.
