“Christianity in today’s America: How it shapes us and we shape it…”
The ever-changing state of religion in America has always intrigued me. Nevertheless, I never expected to find a comprehensive article covering the topic in a New Yorker book review! That is, however, precisely where I came upon it, in the magazine’s current edition (June 22 — “Soul-Searching: How the American church found its followers.”). Having now read it with care, the first thing I would say about it is that it is a wonderful read; this should not have surprised me had I realized in advance that it was penned by an executive editor of the publication, Michael Luo. I’m using the term “comprehensive” here in the sense of wide-ranging while at the same time remaining singularly well-focused on a clearly articulated topic; I’m sure this derives in part from the fact that it is ordinarily exceedingly difficult to find a whole series of newly published works on an identical theme at a particular point in time*.
If we begin the story of a changing Christianity in our country starting with the birth of the American republic, we find that in the late 18th century, organized religion in America was “experiencing an ebbtide” in the context of the intellectual movement called the Enlightenment which was impacting all western societies simultaneously. That intellectual movement called into question every reality known to western civilization up to that point. This meant that even though “Christianity was enmeshed in public life” in the colonies at the time, the first stirrings of discontent with the status quo began to be expressed in the form of unhappiness with the heavy-handed posture of the various established churches in the colonies which in every case derived from the original faith of the first settlers. That original dissatisfaction arose as a result of the influence of the Enlightenment which led to re-examining everything educated people had come to believe in, including religion. Thus, even the disallowed offshoots from the officially sanctioned religious entities were exposed to inquiry, some level of examination and criticism (sometimes quite harsh), so that very few new arrivals on the religious stage escaped punishment for perceived apostasy (ex: Baptists in New England, Anglicans in Virginia who were ranged on the wrong side in the English Civil War, Quakers in Pennsylvania, etc.). Some of the Founding Fathers were themselves sufficiently moved by the new reality to call for an end to the persecution of those simply seeking alternative forms of worship or polity. Madison in particular became the architect of an emerging Bill of Rights which would ultimately appear in the Constitution itself. Although his original proposal for a First Amendment which would protect civil rights in religion as well as in other areas of public discourse did not survive the first round of debate, it did live on in a more ambiguous form when later enacted by Congress. The reason for the shelving of the original version was the conflict between the need to protect religious freedom and the corresponding imperative to acknowledge the great influence of the irreligious elements in public life at the time which was significant. In its final form, the amendment forbade Congress from enacting “any law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In practice, this amounted to ensuring that faith in the U.S. would be voluntary. The end result of this development was a “great deregulation of religion” which ultimately yielded a thriving intellectual marketplace without decisively establishing an absolute “wall of separation between State and Church.” The upshot was that the whole question of how the winners in this struggle would seek to impose their values and beliefs upon the nation awaited resolution in the marketplace of ideas.
What followed this development was a series of attempts at imposing a particular version of faith on the citizenry. The first of these chronologically was the Second Great Awakening (the first one had occurred earlier in the 18th century) commencing around 1800 in Kentucky and dominated by itinerant Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist clergy. This movement is sometimes referred to as “revivalism;” the term is descriptive, but only in part. It was certainly marked by large outdoor events which could be classified as “revivals”, but it extended well beyond this to embrace the beginnings of the modern religious right (which positioned race, gender, and sexuality at the center of its beliefs); what ultimately came about from this was a merging of revivalism with fundamentalism (in particular, the focus of the latter on the inerrancy of scripture and a generally conservative outlook on many fronts from domestic matters to political issues). If revivalism brought vitality to the church, it also left it “intellectually impoverished.” For example, David Barton, not a scholar but a former youth pastor, wrote many influential books in a later period (the 1980s) which in reality became a kind of “cottage industry of historical misinformation that reached deep into the world of evangelical churches, home schools and advocacy organizations.” The impact of this was to lead to a fusion of Christianity and nationalism which would have lasting influence on that community as well as the nation as a whole.
As the nation matured, Christian beliefs in the U.S. emerged in four broad categories or strains: conservative (emphasizing the historic creeds and longstanding church tradition), revivalist (converting souls and transforming individual lives), liberal (seeking to adapt theology to the latest intellectual trends) and liberationist (using faith to achieve social justice). The conservative and revivalist strains developed in the 19th century as explained above; the others can be useful labels for later movements within American Christianity reaching sizable audiences commencing in the 20th century and extending well beyond.
For example, when Darwin’s theory of evolution, along with loosened sexual mores and technological progress all threatened the church’s position by undermining authoritative belief, it became clear that the church needed to change so as to hold onto its traditional base of followers. Enter Harry Emerson Fosdick of First Presbyterian New York, and you can observe Americans abandoning certain long-held beliefs (the virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus, etc.). So, one development that accompanied these changes was the emergence of the social gospel emphasizing our obligation to the poor and needy. In response, an aroused group of conservatives pressed for adherence to traditional articles of faith (fundamentalism). The latter made great strides until the Scopes trial in the 1920s in which the fundamentalists were humiliated by more modern thinking (supporting evolution, for example). But this only recharged the fundamentalists who began experimenting with nondenominational worship and gospel preaching to win back those adherents whom they had temporarily lost. This was followed by the emergence of Billy Graham (and others) and his conversion crusades (“revivals updated for a more contemporary world”), an evangelical development reaching hundreds of thousands of people and attempting to woo them back to more traditional beliefs and practices. Then, in the 1960s and 1970s racial, gender, and sexual norms were called into question by great throngs of younger people who found the new approaches exciting and liberating; this in turn prompted a reaction from the fundamentalists to win whole families back to more traditional beliefs. That reaction brought about a fusion of white evangelicalism, charismatic worship, and anti-intellectualism in a powerful combination. A good example of the emergence of white Christian nationalism in Christianity at this juncture would be the appeal of Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point movement among adolescents and young adults, emphasizing its alliance with the Trump MAGA movement.
As already pointed out, the future will be determined by the religious marketplace itself. And this is heavily influenced by the demands made upon believers by the leaders of the evangelical wing of the church which has battled very successfully with mainline Protestant churches (losing membership as mega-churches grew) as a countervailing force. Perhaps what will come next will be a more blended approach to religion in reaction to the splintering that has characterized our society in the past. Whatever form it takes will be due in part to historic forces at work in the larger body politic which derive from our nation’s ever-changing religious composition and the larger forces at work in our society which shape our beliefs and practices over time, often in familiar ways. The past may not be an accurate predictor, but its role should not be ignored or minimized.
Faithfully,
Fr. Greg Morgan
*A note on sources: the particular titles Luo explores in the review are Brook Wilensky-Lanford, A God-Shaped Nation; Matthew Sutton, Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity; Mark Noll, A History of Christianity in the U.S. and Canada; Joseph L. Locke, One State Under God: A History of Religion in Texas; and Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America — certainly an impressive list of works with obvious connections.)