The Death March of Evangelical Christianity

I was directed this evening to a opinion piece published in the Christian Science Monitor written by Michael Spencer (an evangelical). The following quote sums up the article nicely.

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

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.

These few sentences give me hope that this group will lose their strangle hold over the American democratic system. Throughout most of my life, Evangelicals and other Christians have attempted to impose their beliefs on everyone else through legislation and judicial challenges. Hopeful this is the first whispers of an impending lose of power.

Spencer describes the reasons he thinks the dissolution will occur and many are the precise things that I had previously recognized.

Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society...massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence.

I am glad that others are or soon will be catching up.

The author describes that he thinks currently religious people will take one of two paths. They will either leave religion behind or shift into the more orthodox and dogmatic forms like Catholicism. This will widen the gap between the religious and the non-religious by removing much of what is considered 'mainline' Christianity. This stark contrast will result in many moderates choosing a more secular path rather than the more fundamentalist ideologies.

I see this as a precursor to the death of Christianity as a whole as it will inevitably continue to follow the same path that past religions have. Initially, the religion is concentrated with its single set of dogma and orthodoxy. As time progresses the religion becomes fractured, as happened when the Protestants split from the Catholic Church, the Church of England split from the Roman Catholic Church, when the Protestant church fractured into it many denominations and most recently with the advent of the emerging church and mega churches. As the divisions occur the message becomes watered down and loses its power. As this occurs, the stories of God and Jesus will turn into myths and hold the same power as stories of Zeus and Thor.

Spencer, M. (2009, March 10). Title:The coming evangelical collapse [Editorial].
The Christian Science Monitor, 9. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090310/cm_csm/yspencer

Our First Trip to the Emergency Room

I had visions of our first trip to the ER with Sebastian being one of a broken limb from falling out of a tree or needing stitches after falling off his bike. I did not expect it to be due to him smearing food on his face. Here is what happened (Sebastian's view of the events can be found here).

Our family was sitting down for a lunch of mostly leftovers. I decided to have a peanut butter sandwich and gave a small piece to Sebastian. He ate the first couple of bites normally and then began to play with and mush the pieces. About 10-15 minutes later he started his usual "I'm ready for a nap" motions including rubbing his hands and whatever is on them all over his face. I proceeded to wipe him clean and then go lay down for a nap. I noticed that his face was a little red at this point but figured it was just from the washing. We had been lying down for about 5 minutes when I noticed that he had developed hives all over his face and the backs of his hands. I quickly sent Brian to the store for some Benadryl and more thoroughly washed him off and eventually put him in the tub. When Brian got back we got him out of the bath and dosed him up with the Benadryl. The reaction was limited to the skin that had come in contact with the peanut butter and he never developed any respiratory symptoms. Even though the reaction seemed to be taken care of by the Benadryl we decided to go to the hospital just in case.

When we arrived at the ER the swelling had gone done considerably but it was still very noticeable and red. We were checked in and triaged fairly quickly and sent to the waiting room. About 20-30 minutes later his face was started to get redder and the swelling increased so we went back to the triage nurse who got him in to a room. The nurse came in and checked him out and a few minutes later the doctor came in to examine him and get the history of the event. He was given a dose of steroids to further manage the reaction and finally the swelling started to diminish and redness started to fade. We were discharged with instructions to continue to give the Benadryl and steroids for 3 days, to avoid all products containing peanuts and carry and EpiPen at all times.

This was the last thing I ever expected to happen. Neither Brian nor I have any history of food allergies or any other allergies except poison ivy and hay fever. The most current research indicates that early exposure is protective against allergic reactions.

Questions
1. He is actually allergic to peanuts or to some other substance in the peanut butter (Smart Balance)? I guess we won't know the answer to this until we take him to an allergist.
2. Why did he only react once he 'applied' it to his skin? He had been fine for while after ingesting and only broke out where he had speared it. He had no swelling of his mouth (except bottom lip) or throat.
3. Is it possible that he has only a topical allergy and ingesting it would not pose problems? I have heard anecdotes from people who report getting rashes and/or hives when getting other foods (tomatoes, mangoes, some meats) on their skin but they are able to consume them without any problems. Are stories like this not common with peanuts because it doesn't happen or because people freak out with the skin rash that ingestion is never attempted again?

With the diagnosis of 'peanut allergy' there comes a lot of decisions that have to be made. Do we have to take this to the extreme of avoiding anything that was manufactured in the same place as something that contains peanuts? After he stops nursing do I have to continue to avoid peanut products as well? Do we need to be a peanut free house? Will he need to sit at a peanut free table at school? Can we take him to the circus or baseball games where others will probably be eating peanuts? How do we proceed with this without it taking over every decision we make? Right now it is easy because at only 1 year old we control everything he eats but as he gets older how do we make him aware of it without making him scared?

These are only a fraction of the questions and thoughts churning through my mind right now and the information out there is either purely speculation or inconclusive at best. What is a mom to do?