Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Commentary on the State of the American Church


Some quick analysis for whatever commentary it's worth... here are some quick counts from this list of most influential "Christians" in America:

From para-church ministries: 26
Associated with mega-churches: 17
Actual pastors: 16 (out of 50 most influential!!!)
Charismatic (health & wealth): 10
Career in politics: 5
From emergent circles: 5
Women leaders: 5
From the Graham family: 3
Medical / psychiatric doctors: 3
Cardinals: 1
Popes: 1
Presidents of the United States: 1

What does all that say about the state of "the world's largest evangelical bastion"??


[HT: Between Two Worlds and Ruminations by the Lake]

2 comments:

Ian Hugh Clary said...

Hey Julian,

I just noticed that you commented on my DA Carson post. Do you use my Haloscan? I think that you use the old blogger comment thing that I thought I had disabled. I'll venture a guess that you've commented on my blog and I haven't noticed it.
It's a shame that the comments on the Carson post don't appear without a bit of searching because they were good. If you're interested and have the time, would you repost your thoughts on my Haloscan comment tool?

God bless,

Anonymous said...

Hey Julian,
Ya, I thought it was a depressing list too, when I read it from Justin Taylor's link. The Pope? Health and wealth? If nothing else, it is a display of the lack of discernment in popular evangelicalism today. Note that a considerable portion of the New Testament was specifically written to correct error. But today this kind of tone that stands on the Word of God and calls people to submit to it, is viewed as an anti-biblical failure to 'unite'. Unity in what? Certainly not in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
On an encouraging note, John Piper was #24! I wish Mohler, MacArthur, Dever, Mahaney, etc, were on the list too, but I couldn't believe that John Piper was #24. Praise God!
Ian.