"We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith. "

This quote is from an interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor. The author believes there will be a collapse of the evangelical church in America. His points are valid, and I think apply to many churches. What I found especially interesting was his observation that:

We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

Does the traditional catholic and orthodox church avoid these problems? Perhaps - again, from the article:

Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

Of course, I would hope Anglo-Catholicism would also be attractive to those searching for a more orthodox faith - we certainly have the theological grounding and the spiritual discipline. What we also need is the maturity which will bring the Anglican continuing church back from schism. Unity within the catholic and orthodox continuing church will be essential if we are to provide a firm footing for those uprooted by this sea-change.