To my Protestant friends....

...Wake up before it's too late!

First, politics, and now late night television!

//Certain events, small in themselves, can serve as cultural bellwethers, pointing to the direction that the culture is going as a whole. Two years ago, we saw one of these in the replacement of the Supreme Court's last Protestant, Justice David Souter (an Episcopalian), with Justice Sonia Sotomayor (a Catholic). Since that time, the Supreme Court has been made up of six Catholics and three Jews, with no Protestants. At the time, I asked whether this signalled the twilight of Protestant America.

Support for that theory was not slow in coming. Over the course of 2012,Mitt Romney, a Mormon, won the GOP primary, beating out Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, both Catholics. Romney then chose Paul Ryan, a Catholic, as his vice president. He then lost to Obama, a Protestant with a Catholic vice president. Perhaps most remarkable about all of this was that it was almost unremarked-upon.

Today, I think that we're seeing another of these bellwethers. Late-night host David Letterman recently announced his retirement: his ratings have not been faring well in the face of two new rivals, Jimmy Kimmel and now Jimmy Fallon. Today, CBS announced his replacement: Stephen Colbert. Deacon Greg Kandra was quick to point out one reason that this was significant, with the headline: “The Catholic takeover of late night TV is complete.” Letterman was the Protestant hold-out in late night. Once Colbert replaces him, networks will be hosted by Catholics.

What we're seeing is not necessarily a resurgence of Catholicism, at least in any meaningful sense. Not all of the people we're talking about here are model (or even practicing) Catholics, by any stretch. Rather, we're witnessing the collapse of Protestantism

Speaking of Protestants losing control of their churches long before they lost control of the country...

...Check out this sermon from Harvard's new Pusey Minister at Harvard’s Memorial Church, Jonathon Walton, asserting that “It does not matter if Christianity is true, but rather can we, as those informed by the teachings of Jesus, make it true."

Recently Walton delivered the “Freshman Sunday” sermon, his inaugural sermon, and the Harvard Gazette reports on his articulation of the Epistle of James:

“Faith as defined in this epistle is not a mere cognitive assent to a belief in a divine being,” said Walton, who succeeded the late Rev. Peter J. Gomes in the influential pulpit. “Nor should faith be conceived as blind allegiance to a perceived sacred yet illusive reality. No, … such conceptions of faith are as morally vacuous as they are ethically inept. Rather, James is referring to faith in a sacred reality that reveals itself in human activity.”

Belief is revealed by action, Walter said. “It does not matter if Christianity is true, but rather can we, as those informed by the teachings of Jesus, make it true. Hence at the end of the day, our faith is not something to be professed, as talk is cheap, but something primarily to be done.”

If I were not a man of conscience, I would take the soundbite — “It does not matter if Christianity is true” — and exploit it to make all the usual points about Harvard’s abandonment of its ancient and original Christian commitments and its obeisance to postmodern relativities.

Timothy Dalyrimple offers a nuanced perspective:

The Christian faith, in Walton’s teaching, is “faith in a sacred reality,” so there is an assertion of the reality of some sacred other. This sacred reality “reveals itself in human activity,” and so “faith is not something to be professed, as talk is cheap,” but faith is instead “something primarily to be done.”

This is not necessarily the denial of truth, but is at least its displacement. It’s one thing to say that we experience the truth of God in Christ when we live the life of Christ. It’s another to say that the only “truth” that matters is found in serving others. It’s one thing to say that we come to the truth through participation in the life of Christ. It’s another to say that there is no truth of Christianity apart from what we make true. The truth is the truth, whether or not anyone believes it or acts upon it. Christians historically have understood that they make the truth known through their deeds. But they do not make the truth true through their deeds.

And when Walton denigrates the importance of profession, he’s departing not only from Christian tradition, in which the proclamation of the Word and the confession of the gospel are paramount, but he’s departing from the tradition of Christ, who spent an awful lot of time “professing” as well as “doing.” Christ’s talk was not cheap. The Word is not cheap — and the Word was true eternally, long before there were people to “make it true.”

Walton’s sermon was consistent with the general trend of reducing Christianity to a social justice program, and justifying the presence of churches at secular universities by framing them as community organizers.

Russell D. Moore is shedding no tears for the loss of the Protestant majority...

...or to be more specific, he thinks that the Protestants lost control of their churches a long time ago.

When working toward our “God and country” badges, my childhood Boy Scout troop was shuttled over to the neighborhood United Methodist church for sessions with the pastor about being good Christians and good citizens. I remember my Southern Baptist sensibilities being shocked when the pastor said, in response to a question, that he didn’t believe in angels or demons. The reigning cultural presence of mainline Protestantism served the same purpose as the “God and country” badge. Give us enough Christianity to fight the communists and save the Republic, they said, but let’s remember not to take it all too seriously.

That culture is over.

Frankly, we should be more concerned about the loss of a Christian majority in the Protestant churches than about the loss of a Protestant majority in the United States. Most of the old-line Protestant denominations are captive to every theological fad that has blown through their divinity schools in the past thirty years-from crypto-Marxist liberation ideologies to sexual identity politics to a neo-pagan vision of God—complete with gender neutralized liturgies. Should we lament the fact that the Riverside Avenue Protestant establishment is now collapsing under the weight of its own bureaucracy?

What we should pay attention to instead may be the fresh wind of orthodox Christianity whistling through the leaves-especially throughout the third world, and in some unlikely places in North America, as well. Sometimes animists, Buddhists, and body-pierced Starbucks employees are more fertile ground for the gospel than the confirmed Episcopalian at the helm of the Rotary Club.

Accordingly, evangelicals will engage the culture much like the apostles did in the first century—not primarily to “baptized” pagans on someone’s church roll, but as those who are hearing something new for the first time. There may be fewer bureaucrats in denominational headquarters, but there might be more authentically Christian churches preaching an authentically Christian gospel.