Many American Christians are bracing for doomsday. They fear that rising rates of religious disaffiliation will lead to the decline of Christianity in America. Some demographers predict that if current trends hold, Episcopalians will cease to exist by 2040, with the other mainline denominations – the mainline that once served as the moral heart of the American populace – rounding out the endangered species list. Terms like “the great dechurching” and “the negative world” are regularly bandied about as Christianity no longer holds the same central status it once did. Some of these concerned Christians are looking for lifeboats, gravitating to suggestions such as the “Benedict Option,” where a faithful few exit mainstream society to set up their own parallel communities before the flood comes.
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