Evangelicalism in America: Waxing or Waning?

By Chuck Colson
3/16/2009

Back in 2007, the New York Times famously proclaimed that the evangelical movement in America was cracking up. Since then, the media has relished exposing what they see as fault lines in evangelicalism over such issues as abortion, marriage, and the environment.

The pundits seized upon President Obama’s decisive electoral victory last fall to opine that evangelicals were no longer the political force they once were.

And just last week, a well-known evangelical blogger predicted the “collapse” of evangelicalism in America within the next decade, even though he also predicted that out of the ruins of evangelicalism, “new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born.”

But the American Religious Identification Survey of 2008 gives me reason to think that the predictions of evangelicalism’s demise are greatly exaggerated. In fact, quite the opposite may be true. the rest