THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Less than ten years ago the conventional wisdom was that mainline Protestantism would eventually die out, Catholicism would continue to increase slowly, and Evangelicalism would become the future of "Reformed Christianity." Those predictions are turning out to be wrong. The mighty "born-again" Jesus Movement may very well become the proverbial "flash in the pan" in modern Christian history. In her book Fall of the Evangelical Nation, author Christine Wicker chronicles the rapid disintegration of the Evangelical foundations now underway. In essence, the movement is being assaulted not only by the vices that plague it, but also by the virtues it promotes. When young Evangelicals actually attain the kind of spiritual maturity that Evangelicalism promotes, a good majority of them simply move on to new and different expressions of faith. This is sometimes manifested in conversions to Catholicism, liberal Protestantism, home churches, or simply the "island church mentality" in which one simply considers one's self "Christian" but attends no church at all. In other words, the concept of a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is taken to it's logical conclusion, which is religious individualism. Currently, the foundations of Evangelicalism are eroding. We haven't witnessed the impending collapse yet. It is coming though, and perhaps sooner than we may expect. Once the foundation is completely eroded away, the actual implosion of the movement could occur very rapidly.
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