This Inevitable Ruin

A few weeks ago, I learned that Bill Gothard had a heart attack and is in a coma with little chance of waking. Like many I had a mixed reaction. On the one hand Gothard was a major force in my life shaping my young adult years through PTSD from ALERT and a relationship with religion that would take decades to heal. On the other hand Gothard’s passing really doesn’t affect me much. Both him and his organization have fallen from the incredible popularity and influence they once had. What I did realize is that this is becoming an increasingly familiar experience. Just this past year we’ve had the passing of James Dobson and John MacArthur and with each passing of an influential Evangelical “leader” there’s the assessment of their reach if not the legacy they’ve had. No doubt this reality is only going to continue as the Boomer generation either retires or dies off. I’ve yet to see anyone write seriously about the future of the American church once this generation of “leaders” finally are no longer influential or quite frankly there anymore. In twenty years the American Evangelical church will in all probability be unrecognizable from what it is today. I believe those of us who are not caught up in the fantasy of Christian Nationalism need to be honest about what the next two decades will look like.

Reckoning With Impact

One of the things that make the passing of men like James Dobson or Bill Gothard significant is the need to reckon with the impact of their lives. If you grew up homeschooled, Evangelical, Baptist, or encountered “Biblical counseling” you’ve been personally affected by Bill Gothard (yes Jay Adams was the originator of “Biblical” counseling but Gothard developed an entire religion around it). Even if you never did a “Wisdom Booklet” you may have attended a Sunday school class where someone pulled out the “umbrella” diagram and told you that God wanted you to submit to a man the same way you would submit to God. You might have never read Gothard’s creepy directions about how a woman should dress, but you did read Brio magazine or Shaunti Feldhahn and Shannon Ethridge’s Every Young Women’s Battle you encountered the ideology. There are so many like Kristin Kobes DuMetz, Beth Allison Barr, Shelia Gregoire, Marissa Franks Burt and Kelsey McGinnis, Cait West, Tia Levings, Elena Truba, the late Ryan Stollar, myself, and so many others who in many ways are barely scratching the surface of the damage Bill Gothard has done.

The same thing will apply to Donald Trump when he meets his demise. Trump’s legacy will leave a scar on the character of America for at least two generations if not more. But if the passing of Evangelical leaders gives any window to the future of MAGA a part of the good news is that from all evidence MAGA will implode. This is the other effect of cults-of-personalities, not only do you have to reckon with their impact but also with the vacuum they create when they are gone. On one hand there is the good that their harm will no longer be perpetuated. Yet on the other hand, there is the void that they left that requires everyone else to somehow deal with. John MacArthur’s passing has been a great example of this. His church to this day hasn’t found a replacement “pastor”. One of MacArthur’s closest Elders Phil Johnson has retired due to his own battle with terminal cancer. With MacArthur’s son “managing” the finances of MacArthur’s empire and the multiple lawsuits that are pending against MacArthur’s church and ministries it is doubtful if anything will remain in a short amount of time.

Another little talked about aspect of grief when a supposedly “influential” person passes away is when the vacuum of their loss doesn’t meet the extent of the influence they had in life. This is fairly universal as all people end up leaving a smaller footprint and legacy than they might think as the world moves on. However, there is a unique grief when someone who seemed unbelievably important, powerful, and influential and you realize how limited they really were. There is nothing like seeing how shallow someone’s legacy really is to make one mourn for the undue power and consideration others gave them. I think this very much will be a phenomenon that continues to occur within the Evangelical world. I honestly think we are going to see a generation that as it passes will be shown to have been very “loud” but that will have contributed not much really of long-term substance.

The Fallout

I believe what we are seeing in both MAGA and Evangelicalism is what is called “cascading failures”. It’s a phenomenon where a system can sustain one or two failures and still recover but two or more failures, especially when the system itself is flawed, begins to magnify with each failure exponentially. Two faults become 5, that 5 failures become 10, those 17 failures become a failure point where the system can only collapse. Jesus would say that it’s like building a house on sand. You only get wind or waves and the house doesn’t fall, but wind AND waves the erosion undermines the foundation which weakens the support structure which ends in catastrophe. I think these are the “sands” that have much of the American church has been built upon that we need to know are failing in rapid succession:

1. An idea about “truth” that simply cannot withstand the scrutiny of reality.

Much of what has been an animating force in both conservatism and Evangelicalism is a Platonic assumption about “truth” that is “objective”. Meaning that what these often are appealing to as an “authority” is supposedly common sense and readily observed “laws” of nature or scripture that should (if properly observed) be universally agreed upon. The fundamental problem with this epistemological assumption is that reality doesn’t conform to this “worldview”. Scott Coley in his book Ministers of Propaganda noted that the very fact that there is rational disagreement on any number of things taken as “objective” is itself proof positive that those “truths” are not “objective”. So, you have a culture trying to impose on others what it believes with a false “authority” it does not have.

2. A culture built on lies.

It says something that President Trump’s recent initiative to censor the Smithsonian that David and Tim Barton have been right in the middle of it. The Bartons are liars who sell false propaganda as history. This comfort with deception has come to be a pragmatic character trait for both Evangelicalism and conservatism as a whole. The Republican party right now simply runs on falsehood. Whether it is pretending that Trump is cognizant and not a deeply unwell aged man, or pretending their rule and policies have benefitted almost anyone in the states they have had sole power over for decades, the outright falsehood practiced by conservative and Evangelical leaders is staggering. It is beyond “spin” now into denying clear observable reality. One would think “Christians” would be wary about doing something the Bible states God clearly HATES but here we are. A culture that is so focused on the outright denial of reality simply cannot continue.

3. A culture built around cults of personality that simply cannot survive without them.

Evangelicalism and MAGA by extension (because Trump learned from televangelists and grifters) has become various movements and institutions that only exist because of the notoriety of the charismatic leader. Bill Gothard, John MacArthur, James Dobson, John Piper, R.C. Sproul, Mark Driscoll, Doug Wilson, even Tim Kellar, all of these men built “ministries” based on their charisma and marketability. The reality is that most of what has become the American church hasn’t been built around the gospel, it’s been built around CEO like communicators who could inspire investment and book sales. If you liked MacArthur’s “product” you went to Masters college and Seminary. You went to Bethlehem College or Seminary because you similarly liked Piper. You join Wilson’s cult mainly because you like Doug Wilson. These men simply will not be here or have already left.

Of course, the biggest and grossest cult of personality revolves around Trump. Donald Trump has intentionally, because of his narcissism, built an entire political party around himself and his ego. What is becoming more and more fascinating is the level of cope as Trump very obviously is not going to be around much longer and he is becoming more weak and unpopular every week. The only thing that has kept Republicans in any way cohesive is the threat of him replacing them. Once that is gone an already incompetent and unable to govern anything party simply will fracture. What will be interesting to see is what happens when all of the Christian Nationalists and white supremacist “Christians” who have helped to create this moment realize that they will never achieve the power they crave.

4. Not just leadership but whole populations that simply will not be here.

The current average age for an Evangelical pastor is 55 with pastors over the age of 65 increasing in numbers. The average ages for Evangelical congregants is about the same. What’s more, you look at leaders, both in MAGA and Evangelicalism and by and large not only are they not young, but many also aren’t particularly healthy. One doesn’t have to look too long at city council meetings, school boards, and state legislators to see people who are honestly old. Looking particularly at Southern states that redistricted this last year and every photo or video shows older, obese, white people who many have trouble navigating stairs (and these are legislators who have been in their seats for DECADES).

This wouldn’t be a concern either politically or religiously if younger generations were not overwhelmingly rejecting both religion and conservatism. Irreligiosity among Millenials-Gen Z is the highest it’s been in a century. The SBC has lost over 3 million members since 2006. There is a reality that an entire generation that simply went to church and paid tithe, that supported parachurch entities like Focus on the Family because they just grew up in that culture, will soon be gone with multiple generations coming after them who have never once seen the inside of a church. There aren’t just going to be churches that close (and the rate of them doing so is climbing), this will be the collapse of denominations, of institutions and publishing houses. Speaking just generationally and demographically Evangelicalism and American conservatism are heading headlong into a collapse that is historically unprecedented.

The Way Forward for the Faithful

Here is the reality, what I’ve just outlined above isn’t hypothetical, these things are GOING TO HAPPEN. I know it’s difficult to look at the picture of virility and health that is Donald Trump right now and imagine he’s going to die, but eventually the survivability rate of everyone is zero. All of these dominos are going to fall and the landscape of America and the American church simply will not be the same 20 years from now. My genuine fear is eventually Christianity will be not just a dead but socially offensive religion in that time. I think for those of us who love God and his gospel we are now in the moment where we need to raise our eyes and look to what is ahead.

I think there are several things those of us who believe deeply about the gospel and about the American church need to be doing right now:

1. Many of us need to pivot away from the algorithm of online hate culture.

(And yes this is directed at myself)

On one hand yes when Trump or his administration is doing something to actively harm people we need to be willing to stand up and call it out. However, nothing Trump is doing right now is going to last. Period. At. All. He’s not going to be dictator. Minnesota showed that ICE is defeatable. Trump regardless of what shenanigans he attempts with the 2026 election, he’s still got a Congress that won’t pass his legislation. Even IF he lives to 2028, and IF he somehow riggs everything to run again and illegally win, honestly look at him and tell me we would suffer under that tyranny for any appreciable amount of time.

There is something to acknowledging that Doug Wilson is 73 years old. It doesn’t matter who the Secretary of Defense is right now, Doug Wilson is 73 years old. It is one thing to be alarmed that this heretical, grifting, misogynist, and racist *sshole is “leading” the current Secretary of Defense and is probably inspiring his (illegal) personnel decisions, it’s another to think a cult leader with at best 23,000 followers (in the CREC) will be anything in 10 years.

There is something about pivoting your energy from those who you know are going to collapse. I’ve used the “Titanic” metaphor before but once the ship isn’t turning around, and once everyone jumps who is going to jump, it’s really easy to no longer be concerned with the boat heading to the iceberg.

2. We’re not saving anything; we’re building something new.

This is probably one of the hardest things for so many of us who have grown up in American Evangelicalism- we’re just going to have to watch things die. Many of us just need to come to peace with the fact that the beloved institutions or denominations that served us are heading to extinction. This changes our energy especially online. Who do I want to partner with? Whose voice I value?

I honestly believe that right now we are not in the “building” phase, we are in the vetting and laying the foundation phase. Here’s the thing, it is going to take time. It is going to take time to establish a network of people of consistent character. It is going to take time to vet, prove and trust people to be voices of leadership (Grahm Platner is just a recent example of a failure to do this) (also I welcome this scrutiny). Yes, there is “deconstruction”, but separating the shallow from the informed, the proven from the “influencer”, the scholar from the puppet, these are things that just take time. First, trusted voices need to be vetted on their credentials at a minimum starting point. Secondly there needs to be an acknowledgement that people of character build trust and that is the most important commodity moving forward. In a culture of liars, grifters, and poseurs the authentic, honest, and genuine simply has weight. Finally, there has to be an acknowledgement that it. Will. Take. YEARS (if not decades) to reestablish a foundation that previously was just sand. The animating ideology, theologies, and epistemology that has defined American Evangelicalism has been overtly used for a minimum of 60 years. This brings me to my final point-

3. Many of us are fighting for a sunrise we’ll never see.

The reality of everything I’ve said in this piece is that it really will be 20+ years for the collapse to really culturally hit. I’m right now looking 50 dead in the eye. I am under no allusions that the corruption of the church and America will be fully dealt with before I die. There is freedom in realizing you are fighting for a country you will never live in. There is peace in knowing the church you are ultimately going to be a member of is eternal.

Quite frankly a serious fault of our recent forefathers has been an inability to look beyond the next election cycle much less their own lifetime. As the branches are being pruned back it definitely is a temptation to think, “Finally it’s our turn!” But a pruned branch doesn’t mean the roots are healthy.

I’ve become convinced, especially over the past 10 years that what many of us are doing isn’t “deconstructing” the American church so much as “replanting” the church. Realizing we’re being called to “replant” I think means both being comfortable with a whole generation of poisoned plants withering, and understanding that we’re staring from scratch in many ways and we might not see the eventual harvest.

But at this point what else are you going to do?

Welcome to the Resistance

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