First, it’s quite common to hear from former evangelicals now within the Mainline Protestant tradition that if evangelicals, with their persistently conservative theology, would only liberalize on such issues as biblical authority and sexual ethics—they’d find a newfound opportunity for cultural influence and increased opportunity to “reach the next generation.” The problem, however, is that the statistical evidence suggests just the opposite: It’s the liberalizing trends of American life that work to calcify vibrant, growing, and orthodox belief. The report indicates that a nominal, religious middle is simply dropping out altogether. The almost-Christianity of liberal Christianity is proving, in the long run, to not be Christianity at all. Either failing to grow or literally dying out, Mainline liberalism offers little as far as attractional gravitas once it surrenders core doctrinal beliefs to progressivism. If anything is clear from the Pew report, it’s that evangelicals should, once and for all, ignore the captains at the helm of the Mainline Titanic.Again, this only reinforces Carl Trueman's recent comments. "For Christians to continue to protest the world in the public square, they need first to be deeply and seriously grounded in the historic, doctrinal, and elaborate Christian faith."
How will evangelical Christians survive? How will Liberalism be overthrown? It's easy. Merely hold fast and earnestly contend for the faith handed down.
