Why I’m Hopeful About the Evangelical Movement – USA Today
In 1976, the cover of Newsweek declared that, with a presidential election that featured the born-again Jimmy Carter, it was the “Year of the Evangelical.” Forty-five years later, the news media fascination with my spiritual family has not abated.
From the heady days of 2004, when once again evangelicals were crowned a defining political force, to this moment when a cottage industry of books laments our influence, the world has looked in on us and we have looked in on ourselves and have asked a perennial question, “What is our future?”
In one sense, this is a question born out of a variety of factors owing to the tumult of the hour. We live in the digital age, where every voice can be heard, where every family disagreement is public, where there is no such thing as an unheard opinion.
We are also riven by social chasms splitting society, sorting as we are over shared hatreds shaped by politics, race and a global pandemic. And there has been an epidemic of scandals among evangelical institutions, moral failures and abuses of power brought to light in the past several years.
Many are questioning the future of the movement. Some predict it will split, left, right and center, mirroring the divide among mainline denominations at the turn of the 20th century.
Read more here at USA Today