Chris­tian­ity’s American Fate. How religion became more conservative and society more secular

"Tracing the rise of evangelicalism and the decline of mainline Protestantism in American religious and cultural life. How did American Christianity become synonymous with conservative white evangelicalism? This sweeping work by a leading historian of modern America traces the rise of the evangelical movement and the decline of mainline Protestantism's influence on American life. In Christianity's American Fate, David Hollinger shows how the Protestant establishment, adopting progressive ideas about race, gender, sexuality, empire, and divinity, liberalized too quickly for some and not quickly enough for others. After 1960, mainline Protestantism lost members from both camps--conservatives to evangelicalism and progressives to secular activism. A Protestant evangelicalism that was comfortable with patriarchy and white supremacy soon became the country's dominant Christian cultural force. Hollinger explains the origins of what he calls Protestantism's "two-party system" in the United States, finding its roots in America's religious culture of dissent, as established by seventeenth-century colonists who broke away from Europe's religious traditions; the constitutional separation of church and state, which enabled religious diversity; and the constant influx of immigrants, who found solidarity in churches. Hollinger argues that the United States became not only overwhelmingly Protestant but Protestant on steroids. By the 1960s, Jews and other non-Christians had diversified the nation ethno-religiously, inspiring more inclusive notions of community. But by embracing a socially diverse and scientifically engaged modernity, Hollinger tells us, ecumenical Protestants also set the terms by which evangelicals became reactionary."-- Dust jacket

Tracing the rise of evangelicalism and the decline of mainline Protestantism in American religious and cultural life How did American Christianity become synonymous with conservative white evangelicalism? This sweeping work by a leading historian of modern America traces the rise of the evangelical movement and the decline of mainline Protestantism's influence on American life. In Christianity's American Fate, David Hollinger shows how the Protestant establishment, adopting progressive ideas about race, gender, sexuality, empire, and divinity, liberalized too quickly for some and not quickly enough for others. After 1960, mainline Protestantism lost members from both camps—conservatives to evangelicalism and progressives to secular activism. A Protestant evangelicalism that was comfortable with patriarchy and white supremacy soon became the country's dominant Christian cultural force.Hollinger explains the origins of what he calls Protestantism's "two-party system" in the United States, finding its roots in America's religious culture of dissent, as established by seventeenth-century colonists who broke away from Europe's religious traditions; the constitutional separation of church and state, which enabled religious diversity; and the constant influx of immigrants, who found solidarity in churches. Hollinger argues that the United States became not only overwhelmingly Protestant but Protestant on steroids. By the 1960s, Jews and other non-Christians had diversified the nation ethnoreligiously, inspiring more inclusive notions of community. But by embracing a socially diverse and scientifically engaged modernity, Hollinger tells us, ecumenical Protestants also set the terms by which evangelicals became reactionary.

Tracing the rise of evangelicalism and the decline ofmainline Protestantism in American religious and culturallife How did American Christianity become synonymous withconservative white evangelicalism? This sweeping work by a leadinghistorian of modern America traces the rise of the evangelicalmovement and the decline of mainline Protestantism's influence onAmerican life. In Christianity's American Fate, DavidHollinger shows how the Protestant establishment, adoptingprogressive ideas about race, gender, sexuality, empire, anddivinity, liberalized too quickly for some and not quickly enoughfor others. After 1960, mainline Protestantism lost members fromboth camps-conservatives to evangelicalism and progressives tosecular activism. A Protestant evangelicalism that was comfortablewith patriarchy and white supremacy soon became the country'sdominant Christian cultural force. Hollinger explains the originsof what he calls Protestantism's "two-party system" in the UnitedStates, finding its roots in America's religious culture ofdissent, as established by seventeenth-century colonists who brokeaway from Europe's religious traditions; the constitutionalseparation of church and state, which enabled religious diversity;and the constant influx of immigrants, who found solidarity inchurches. Hollinger argues that the United States became not onlyoverwhelmingly Protestant but Protestant on steroids. By the 1960s,Jews and other non-Christians had diversified the nationethnoreligiously, inspiring more inclusive notions of community.But by embracing a socially diverse and scientifically engagedmodernity, Hollinger tells us, ecumenical Protestants also set theterms by which evangelicals became reactionary.

p r e fac e xiii fundamentalist classmates. It was then that I first became aware of the character and significance of what this book calls "the ecumenical-evangelical divide. " In informal debates with Southern Baptist youths, I voiced what I understood of liberal theology, and I defended the progressive initiatives endorsed by the Christian Century. My fundamentalist friends constantly invoked Billy Graham, but to my dismay none of them had ever heard of the missionary doctor Albert Schweitzer, the great hero of my parents and their circle of churchgoers. At our class's graduation, one Arkansas-born classmate, climaxing four years of more or less genial argumentation, bid me farewell by confidently informing me that people like me " will be destroyed at the battle of Armageddon. " I later drifted away from the faith, but retained a feel for it that I hope informs this book. Although I now write from a secular perspective, I know that I, as a post-Protestant, bring to the historian's vocation a sensibility that owes much to my Protestant background. I have written about the lives of my churchcentered family in When This Mask of Flesh Is Broken: The Story of an American Protestant Family (2019). Many colleagues and friends ofered suggestions on specific chapters and earlier drafts of this book. I am indebted to Ran- Cover Contents Preface 1. Introduction: The Other Protestants 2. A Country Protestant on Steroids 3. Jewish Immigrants versus Anglo-Protestant Hegemony 4. The Missionary Boomerang 5. The Apotheosis of Liberal Protestantism 6. The 1960s and the Decline of the Mainline 7. Ecumenical Democrats, Evangelical Republicans, and Post-Protestants 8. Christianity’s American Fate: A Conservative Refuge? 9. Beyond the Paradox of a Religious Politics in a Secular Society Notes Index