You Don't Hear Often the Term "Fundamentalists." How About "Evangelical"

If there were a way to plot the likeability or appeal of the term "Evangelical," I'm sure it would show a constant decline for the last several years. It has become associated with the words, "cruel," "mean" and intrusive/invasive. A recent book by a celebrity news personality reviews her journey out of evangelical world. 

I watched a video that addressed the question, "How can we Lutherans get people to attend church?" The answer had nothing to do with theology. That is, the old con job which said there is heaven, hell, sin and redemption and the only way to win. The video from a declining branch of Lutheranism was an interview with a young man located not far from where I now live in Iowa. He had done a survey, not of people who attend church to find out what they liked, but of people who had stopped attending church. He drilled down into why they had stopped attending.

The large answer he found sounded like a class in economics. A large group of people who are not anti Christian, often retaining membership in a church, had stopped attending when churches closed during the Covid period. Some had only attended periodically before Covid. Covid put the church service online. If they remain interested in what is happening in their church the easiest way to find out is to watch on a screen. The hardest way is to dress up, sometimes argue with a spouse or children, drive to the church, etc. The cost/benefit calculation to attending church has become unprofitable.  

What to do about church attendance? Here the video began to sound like a class in Rural Sociology over 60 years ago. The goal of that course was to find a way to persuade farmers to use the advanced technology available from the Department of Agriculture's Extension Service. The method was to identify leaders in a group then persuade the leaders to persuade the others one at a time. This is exactly what preachers are to do today to get more people joining and attending church. The preacher/researcher said quite bluntly theology, that is sin, punishment, forgiveness, etc., had little or no role in church attendance.

The evangelism of spreading the gospel is not involved in this church growth strategy. Instead, the church is presented as a place where what we call today, "networking", takes place. Indeed, the demographic most likely to attend church is that of young professionals,