Why Don't Exvangelicals Check the Tires of Confessional Protestantism

Paleo Protestant Pudcast

The whole crew (D. G. Hart-Presbyterian, Korey Maas-Lutheran, and Miles Smith-Anglican) returns in this discussion of Miles's review of several recent books by evangelicals who left evangelicalism to become - you guessed it - exvangelicals. These books parallel the rise and fall of the Young Restless Reformed which was the subject of this article. These trends also coincide with the increase of Americans who qualify as "nonverts," that is, people who used to identify as some version of Christian and now consider themselves "none," as in having no religion.

For those who consider the importance of institutions, especially for confessional Protestants with a high doctrine of the church, these trends present serious dilemmas for the ongoing ministry of word and sacrament through the agency of an institutional church (sometimes known as denomination). Confessional Protestants generally take denominational structures for granted even though since the rise of the megachurch (1990s), followed by social network forms of Christian cooperation and aspiration (Gospel Coalition and Acts 29, for example), more and more American Christians are unfamiliar with the institutional mechanisms for organizing ministry and belonging.

What may be especially intriguing for those with ears to be intrigued is that the shelf-life of recent evangelical endeavors in church planting run out of steam and done so almost as fast (as they tell us) as the planet is heating up.

Summer is too short for advertisements. But Twitter access is still available for Miles Smith @ivmiles and D. G. Hart @oldlife. Please do not bother Korey Maas. He has an academic department to run.