Ecumenical, Evangelical and Emergent Protestism

For the last 50 years, Evangelical Protestants (EvaPs) have pummeled Ecumenical Protestants (EcuPs) with a long list of complaints:

1. EcuPs have failed to honor Christ, Scripture and Tradition.
2. EcuP's decline in numbers is proof of spiritual failure.

While asserting:

1. EvaPs are more faithful to Christ, Scripture and Tradition.
2. EvaP's numbers prove their faithfulness.

Reading EvaP books and articles, it's obvious: reliance on numbers is overwhelming. Ask an EvaP about evangelicalism, and very quickly one will hear a long list of statistics - new churches, numbers in attendance, missionaries sent out, money rolling in, students in seminary, and so on.

This litany of statistics reflects the American Spirit of entrepreneurial success, which tends to isolate success from a host of contributing factors that make the "success" less a matter of personal achievement and more a matter of "luck," or in the Christian vocabulary, a matter of providence, or grace.

If the Bible has anything to suggest, it's likely this when it comes to numbers:

1. All human greatness is of God.
2. All such greatness becomes arrogant.
3. God brings down all such arrogance.


God is kind enough to take the torch from all movements and bring it elsewhere, that it can burn afresh.


EcuP was clearly on top of the game after WW2 and throughout much of the first half of the 20th Century, and then "decline," with EvaPs now dominating the playing field.

Yet, in the early years of the 21st Century, we see similar signs of decline in EvaP that were evident in EcuP decades ago.

EvaP will continue to slide, as Americas prove, once again, how fickle and shallow are their religious pursuits - more interested in losing weight, looking good and being assured that God loves them, no matter what, and after death, going to heaven with all of their friends, while their enemies can just rot in hell.

And so it goes.

And where it goes in the next 50 years remains to be seen.

Perhaps there's hope in what might be termed Emergent Protestantism (EmeP), a fascinating amalgam of the various energies of EcuP and EvaP, driven by missional imperatives in a post-modern, post-christian, world.

Perhaps a chastened Protestant Christianity can learn again the power of gratitude and humility; that we are creatures, one and all, great and small, of grace, and by grace, called to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth (gentle metaphors), letting the world see our good works that the world might give glory to our Father in heaven.