In 2013, author John S. Dickerson wrote about the troubling condition of the American church in his book “The Great Evangelical Recession: 6 Factors That Will Crash the American Church and How to Prepare.”
Mr. Dickerson‘s key premise was that Christian orthodoxy in the United States is in rapid decline. The evidence he presented to support what, at first glance, seems to be a terminal diagnosis is multifaceted.
According to Mr. Dickerson, orthodox belief, church attendance and denominational loyalty are dropping precipitously. He argues that, by way of attrition, a transition from the religious homogeneity of the baby boomers to the therapeutic deism of millennials and Generation Zers is leading the church to flounder and lose its cultural influence.
Political division and partisan disagreement is hastening the church’s diminishing voice. There are innumerable intramural splits. Church attendance is plummeting, with over 2.6 million of America’s younger generations leaving the sanctuary and abandoning biblical faith in the past 10 years alone. This trend will only accelerate in ...
