There has been something called the Seeker movement. Near as I can tell, this is the church version of Walt Disney’s High School Musical, often with in-house rock bands, interpretive dancers, and comedy teams. You’ll hear them say things like, “We’re the church for the unchurched.” I wonder if they realize what a Catch-22 phrase this is. If you’re unchurched, you don’t want to go there, because if you do, you will no longer be unchurched, and hence you’ll be outside their target group. This movement seems to have peaked.

John Lennon sang, “Nobody told me there’d be days like these, strange days indeed.” We are now experiencing the “New Atheism.” You know what an atheist is, right? He’s somebody who will sue the school for having a nativity scene, but won’t sue his boss for giving him Sundays, Christmas Day and Good Friday off. With the New Atheism, we have celebrities, best-selling books, and book-signing parties – at the few remaining book stores. The latest thing is atheist congregations at “Sunday assembly.” Here they get fellowship, singing and inspiring talks by glib, urbane speakers – just no God. Only thing is, I think very few patients lying in the cancer ward are going to want to pick up the phone and ring up Dial-An-Atheist.

At the same time, we’re seeing what is perhaps the beginning of a new Reformation – from the Roman Catholic Church of all places. Catholicism’s first non-European pope is shaking up the apple cart with strident denunciations of ostentatious clergy and the culture of wealth and power. He’s telling his hierarchy to get over themselves, and proclaim the gospel. He has quickly become one of the most beloved popes in their history. And so as we approach the end of 2013, the biggest happenings in the spiritual universe are the New Atheism and Roman Catholicism.

Meanwhile, Protestantism and Evangelicalism appear to be, for the time being at least, in the doldrums. Numbers for both are plummeting, especially among the young.

There is something called the Emerging Church Movement. Near as I can tell, this is Mainline Protestantism in tattoos and sandals. You’ll hear them say things like, “For us, the questions are as important as the answers.” Unfortunately, for those seeking answers, they too infrequently find them here.

Mainline Protestantism is sinking like a rock. This is in spite of the fact that they have an advantage over the conservatives (I mean apart from the fact they own all the buildings). When you’re a conservative, you hear the same truths over and over and in time it can become tedious. With a liberal preacher, however, he can say anything, drawn from anywhere, and you may find yourself thinking, “That’s new, never heard that before, interesting.” But it continues to sink because, while Catholicism has an infallible pope, and evangelicalism has an infallible Bible, with Mainline Protestantism nothing is infallible, so how important are the thoughts of the guy talking up there?

There has been something called the Seeker movement. Near as I can tell, this is the church version of Walt Disney’s High School Musical, often with in-house rock bands, interpretive dancers, and comedy teams. You’ll hear them say things like, “We’re the church for the unchurched.” I wonder if they realize what a Catch-22 phrase this is. If you’re unchurched, you don’t want to go there, because if you do, you will no longer be unchurched, and hence you’ll be outside their target group. This movement seems to have peaked. It was learned that the seekers seldom advance beyond the status of seekers, the turnover rate is high, and while it costs a lot of money to produce those weekend musical extravaganzas, the per-capita giving is low.

In my early days as a Christian, the 1970s, I joined a “Fundamentalist” church – you know, the dos ‘n’ don’ts people. I learned that legalism always breeds hypocrisy; it was true in the days of Jesus, and it is just as true today. One of their big buzz words was “separated,” as in, “I can’t fellowship with John; he’s not as separated as me.” I later learned that “Pharisee” meant “separated.” When I found that out, I said to myself, “Why am I not surprised?”

I was into Dispensationalism. They’re the ones that, whenever there’s an intensification of activity in the Middle East, they hop and they bop and they shout, “Rapture! Rapture! Rapture! Jesus is coming soon! Soon! Soon!” But after so many years of that, and so many failed prognostications, “Soon! Soon! Soon!” eventually became, for me, “Past due! Past due! Past due!” For me, at some point it became like Chicken Little, the sky is falling.

I discovered Reformed faith, you know, the Calvinists. It’s not trendy; there’s no glitz, no glamour. It doesn’t seek to be innovative. But it’s solid and dependable. There’s something reassuring about their sovereign God, something comforting about the Gospel of Grace. It’s like the old commercial for State Farm Insurance: “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” And so like a good neighbor, the God of our fathers is there. There’s stuff I used to believe that I no longer believe, but I can still stand and recite the Apostles’ Creed with integrity. So can the Reformed churches.

Strange days indeed.

Larry Brown is a minister in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a member of Central South Presbytery, and serves as Professor of church history, world history, hermeneutics and missions at the African Bible College in Lilongwe, Malawi.