(Friday Church News Notes, September 19, 2025, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – 

In 1978, Richard Quebedeux published The Worldly Evangelicals, documenting the dramatic changes that were already occurring within evangelicalism a mere thirty years after the onslaught of the spirit of “Newism.” He observed that “the wider culture has had a profound impact on the evangelical movement as a whole” (The Worldly Evangelicals, 1978, p. 115). 

Though Quebedeaux didn’t make the connection, this is a direct result of the repudiation of separation. He said: “In the course of establishing their respectability in the eyes of the wider society, the evangelicals have become harder and harder to distinguish from other people. Upward social mobility has made the old revivalistic taboos dysfunctional. … the COCKTAILS became increasingly difficult to refuse. Evangelical young people LEARNED HOW TO DANCE AND OPENLY ‘GROOVED’ ON ROCK MUSIC. … And evangelical magazines and newspapers began REVIEWING PLAYS AND MOVIES. … The Gallup Poll is correct in asserting that born-again Christians ‘believe in a strict moral code.’ BUT THAT STRICTNESS HAS BEEN CONSIDERABLY MODIFIED DURING THE LAST FEW YEARS … DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE are becoming more frequent and acceptable among evangelicals of all ages, even in some of their more conservative churches. … Some evangelical women are taking advantage of ABORTION on demand. Many younger evangelicals occasionally use PROFANITY in their speech and writing … Some of the recent evangelical sex-technique books assume that their readers peruse and view PORNOGRAPHY on occasion, and they do. 

Finally, in 1976 there emerged a fellowship and information organization for practicing evangelical LESBIANS AND GAY MEN and their sympathizers. There is probably just as high a percentage of gays in the evangelical movement as in the wider society. Some of them are now coming out of the closet, distributing well-articulated literature, and demanding to be recognized and affirmed by the evangelical community at large. … It is profoundly significant that evangelicals, even the more conservative among them, have ACCEPTED THE ROCK MODE.

 This acceptance, obviously, indicates a further chapter in the death of self-denial and world rejection among them. … When young people were converted in the Jesus movement, many of them simply did not give up their former habits, practices, and cultural attitudes–DRINKING, SMOKING, AND CHARACTERISTIC DRESS AND LANGUAGE. … Young evangelicals drink, but so do conservative evangelicals like Hal Lindsey and John Warwick Montgomery (who is a member of the International Wine and Food Society). … But EVEN MARIJUANA, now virtually legal in some areas of the United States, is not as forbidden among young evangelicals as it once was. A few of them, particularly the intellectuals, do smoke it on occasion…”   (The Worldly Evangelicals, 1978, pp. 14, 16, 17, 118, 119).