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-pa