Eclectic Christian

I have a great appreciation for my Pastor. I appreciate his perspectives on most issues, and I appreciate his leadership within the church. However, for the last two years we have disagreed quite strongly on one particular significant issue. What that issue is, is not important to the topic at hand, but suffice to say, it is an issue that has divided many churches in the past, and had the potential to cause much dissension or division in our church as well.

But it didn’t.
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My previous post followed up on a discussion that Michael Spencer had been having about mental illness and demon possesion.  I gave an example from personal experiene about mental illness where I felt that it could be shown that there was no spiritual component.  Now I want to give an example of my first hand experience with demon possession.

Just to set the record straight, in 46 years in the church I have had just one experience with the demonic.  Only one.  I am not the type to see a demon behind every bush.  But I have had one experience that I think can help us understand how Jesus knew when people needed healing or needed a demon cast out of them.
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I have been following with interest the posts that Michael Spencer has been making concerning mental illness and demon possession.  You see, I have had first hand experience with both, in two very different settings.  Here is a look at the first.

When I was growing up, my Grandmother, who lived just a couple of miles away, suffered from Schizophrenia. It would manifest itself most when people, usually family, would come to visit.  If she misplaced something, she would accuse whoever had visited last of stealing it from her.  The incident I remember most clearly was being accused of stealing her piano music to support my non-existant drug habit.  Bet you didn’t know that there is a black market for sheet music!  It seems pretty comical now, but back then it was anything but. Eventually my parents started cutting back on our visits, as they were just too difficult.
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By Michael Bell

This post was originally published at Internet Monk.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.
- Bob Dylan 1963

For years I have heard about the many changes that have been taking place within the Christian World. Churches and denominations growing, churches and denominations shrinking. We have had a pretty good idea of who has been growing, and who has been shrinking, but with birth rates, death rates and other factors, it has been pretty hard to pin down the source of the growth and decline. Have Evangelicals been growing? If so, has the growth come from the non religious, Catholics, Mainline Protestants, or other religions? What sort of outflows have they experienced that have offset the inputs? Is the back door larger or smaller than the front door? How are the Catholics, the Mainline Protestants, the non religious and others doing?

Well now we know.

A few days ago, The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released the results of a survey entitled Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S. This was followup to their U.S. Religious Landscape Survey that they released last year.

I have been busy in the last week doing a bit of reverse engineering on the numbers to represent the shifts in belief as best and as clearly as I can. Here is the resulting chart. You can click on it to see the full sized version.

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By Michael Bell

I had previously posted that because of the busyness of life, both for myself and Joshua Hearne, that posting to Eclectic Christian is going to be quite limited for the next few months. However, I am going to be posting infrequently at Internet Monk and I will repost those items here.

I have been posting on Eclectic Christian now for just over a year. This post is the amalgamation of two of my very earliest posts and is revisited now as Easter is just about upon us.

A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest!” Matthew 21:8-9

22″What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!”
23″Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!” Matthew 27:22-23

What a difference a week makes! In one week, the people have gone from shouting “Hosanna” to shouting “Crucify him!” Unfortunately, in almost every sermon I have heard on the topic, the pastor gets it wrong. (Not picking on any particular pastor here, I have heard this preached badly six or seven times.) The Pastor assumes that the crowd in Matthew 21 is the same as the crowd in Matthew 27. But this is not the case. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is the daily post for March 23rd on my blog: Telling the Stories that Matter.

March 23 – Peter O’Higgins, Martyr, Lifesaver, Thought Criminal

William Pilsworth was the vicar of the Church of Ireland in Donadea and had given room and board to Roman Catholic friars even though they disagreed on some theological matters. In 1641, there was a rebellion on Ireland and many fled the countryside to find refuge in Dublin. William was one of the last to do so and was detained by the rebel army outside of Dublin. When they searched his things they found a letter from a brother-in-law who asked William to kill a rebel and bring the head with him so that their family might purchase security from the powerful by spilling the blood of the hated. Though William had done no such thing and had no plans to do so, he was given a political choice: attend a Roman Catholic mass as an ally or die as an enemy. He refused to be manipulated and so he was marched to the gallows. Before the trapdoor released and William could plunge to his death, a Roman Catholic priest by the name of Peter O’Higgins intervened. Peter had never met William and knew nothing of him but gave a detailed and impassioned speech insisting that this execution would be an unholy and reprehensible act. Having been chastized by Peter O’Higgins, William’s captors released him.

The protestant government soon cracked down on the rebellion and moved into the area with speed and vicious efficiency. Peter remained in his parish even though he had been advised to flee the expected vengeance against Roman Catholics in the area. He was arrested and turned over to the military powers. The commander of the force, a man by the name of Ormonde, handed him on down the line to a lesser officer but expected that the Peter–a Dominican priest–would find mercy from those in whose hands he found himself. Almost twenty protestant clergymen wrote letters begging mercy and leniency for Peter but these appear to be ignored. He was beaten, abused, tortured, and finally marched to the gallows to die. He was accused of trying to convinced protestants to give up their protest but could only be found guilty of simply being Roman Catholic. When he stood on the gallows, he was presented with two pieces of paper: one was a warrant for his execution and the other was a pardon to be given to him on the condition that he recanted his faith. He had requested that the pardon be printed up for him to consider upon the gallows and his accusers had complied.

The assembled crowd looked on as Peter considered both documents. They couldn’t decide what they wanted more: to see the priest die or to see the priest sacrifice his faith for his life. They had long ago left behind devotion to the one who was the Bread of Life. He picked up the pardon and some in the crowd were excited as they imagined he would now recant his position and join with the protestants. Instead, he spoke loudly and for all to hear: “For some time I was in doubt as t the charge on which they would ground my condenmnation; but, thanks to heaven, it is no longer so; and I am about to die for my attachment to the catholic faith. See you here the condition on which I might save my life? Apostasy is all they require; but, before high heaven, I spurn their offers, and with my last breath will glorify God for the honor he has done me, in allowing me thus to suffer for his name.” With these words, he threw the pardon to the dirt below the gallows. The trapdoor was released and he was hung for refusing to give up on his faith–the faith that this accusers claimed but had long ago forgotten. This was not a protestant or Roman Catholic faith alone; it was a faith that transcended political labels and rested solely in devotion to Jesus. As he slowly died at the end of the rope–and even as they were preparing to kill Peter–William Pilsworth stood at his feet repeatedly yelling: “This man is innocent! He saved my life!” Peter O’Higgins died on the 23rd day of March in the year 1642.

By Michael Bell

A number of commentators have called me to account for not providing proper support for my last point.

Michael Spencer had written:

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

I responded by saying that:

If you want to know what America is going to look like in forty years, and how Evangelicals will be treated, look at Canada today… If my statistical analysis up to this point has been correct, then Evangelical numbers in the USA in forty years will be very similar to Evangelical numbers in Canada today. Much of what Michael has said about the way Evangelicals will be treated in the USA is already true in Canada… I do not have the time or space to go into further details, but forty years from now it will be a much different world from what you are currently experiencing.

My mistake was not going into details. I was not trying to say that Canada is a scary place. I was just trying to say that it will be different. Keep in mind that I am saying this as one who is engaging the culture. My kids all go to Public School in Canada, I served for a number of years on School Council. My kids all play soccer in the public league, even though there is a faith based league that they could belong to. I am the lone Evangelical Christian at an advertising agency which has about as secular a culture as you can get.

So here are some of the things that I have experienced or seen happen in Canada that shows society’s increasing intolerance towards Christianity:

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By Michael Bell.

Michael Spencer has published a series of articles about a coming Evangelical collapse in the United States. One, published in the Christian Science Monitor, has stirred up a great deal of debate, both inside and outside the Christian community. As a person who is greatly interested in statistics, I was very interested in seeing if Michael’s claims could be borne out by statistical analysis. Let’s look at some of his statements and see if these ideas can be statistically supported.

1. “Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.”

Let start by looking at the present day numbers. Michael says that between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelical. According to the recently released American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), of the 228,182,000 adult Americans in the survey, 77,747,000 self identify as “Evangelical” or “Born Again”, a number equivalent to 34% of the adult population. These numbers come from across the theological spectrum and include a significant percentage (18.4%) of Catholics who identify themselves as Evangelical as well as members (38.6%) of mainline denominations. So when Michael says that a maximum of 35% of Americans are Evangelical, he is pretty much on the money.

If you only want to count those Evangelicals who are not attending Catholic or mainline denominations you have a number of 56,500,000 who identify as Evangelical or “Born Again”, a number equal to 24.8% of the total adult population. So it would appear that Michael’s range of 25-35% was an extremely accurate starting point.

2. “Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants.”

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By Michael Bell

We are getting a fair number of visitors because of our post on Internet Monk supporting his claims for an Evangelical collapse. Welcome, take some time to browse and enjoy the site. Be sure to check our Archived Series for some of the more interesting posts that we have written. Any feedback you might provide by way of comments is always appreciated.

In many ways it is kind of ironic, that we would be writing about an Evangelical collapse as Eclectic Christian is about the centrality of the Gospel, and celebrating the many good things that are happening in Churches of many different stripes. Although this may sound strange, I see the post by Michael Spencer as a good thing too. Not because it contains good news, but because it is a clarion call to action. If the good news of Jesus Christ is to be proclaimed, then Evangelicals must act as evangelicals. What are we doing to help spread the good news in a way that people can hear it, understand it, and respond?

Romans 1:16a – For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for the salvation of everyone who believes.

Your thoughts and comments are always welcome.