John Piper has a post up pointing to and discussing briefly Joseph Bottum’s essay on the decline of protestant America. Mr. Piper quotes a last point from Bottum and then concludes:
What happened?
“The churches’ desperate hunger to mean more in politics and economics had the perverse effect of making them less effective opponents of the political and economic pressures on the nation. They mattered more when they wanted to matter less.”
I pray that the younger evangelicals who are pondering where to put their energies will learn from history that doctrinal accommodation brings larger audiences in the short run but death and irrelevance in the long run.
And God forbid that any should say with Hezekiah: Who cares if the death comes in 80 years as long as I have crowds and influence in my day (2 Kings 20:19).