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While others lament the declining attendance of mainline churches and blame it on an out-of-date tradition, Jackson Carroll offers a more hopeful perspective, arguing that they key to future vitality can be found in the same tradition. According to Carroll, the tension between tradition and change has always been part of the Protestant heritage, and he argues that now is a time when being faithful requires adaptation.
As recently as the 1960s, more than half of all American adults belonged to just a handful of mainline Protestant denominations—Presbyterian, UCC, Disciples of Christ, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and American Baptist. Presidents, congressmen, judges, business leaders, and other members of the elite overwhelmingly came from such backgrounds. But by 2010, fewer than 13 percent of adults belonged to a mainline Protestant church. What does the twenty-first century hold for this once-hegemonic religious group? In this volume, experts in American religious history and the sociology of religion examine the extraordinary decline of mainline Protestantism over the past half century and assess its future. Contributors discuss the demographics of mainline Protestants; their beliefs, practices, and modes of worship; their political views and partisan affiliations; and the social and moral questions that unite and divide Protestant communities. Other chapters examine Protestant institutions, including providers of health care and education; analyze churches’ public voice; and probe what will come from a diminished role relative to other groups in society, especially the ascendant evangelicals. Far from going extinct, the book argues, the mainline Protestant movement will continue to be a vital remnant in an American religious culture torn between the contending forces of secularism and evangelicalism.
Wade Clark Roof and William McKinney argue that a new voluntarism is slowly eroding the old social and economic boundaries that once defined and separated religious groups and is opening new cleavages along moral and life-style lines. Nowhere has the impact of these changes been more profoundly felt than by the often-overlooked religious communities of the American center, or mainline--Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish. "American Mainline Religion" provides a new "mapping" of the families of American religion and the underlying social, cultural, and demographic forces that will reshape American religion in the century to come. Going beyond the headlines in daily newspapers, Roof and McKinney document the decline of the Protestant establishment, the rise of a more assimilated and public-minded Roman Catholicism, the place of black Protestantism and Judaism, and the resurgence of conservative Protestantism as a religious and cultural force.
Since the Revolutionary War, Mainline Christianity has been comprised of the Seven Sisters of American Protestantism—the Congregational Church, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, the United Methodist Church, the American Baptist Convention, and the Disciples of Christ. These denominations have been the dominant cultural representatives since the nineteenth century of how and where the majority of American Christians worship. Today, however, the Seven Sisters no longer represent most American Christians. The Mainline has been shrinking while evangelical and fundamentalist churches, as well as non denominational congregations and mega churches, have been attracting more and more members. In this comprehensive and accessible book, Jason S. Lantzer chronicles the rise and fall of the Seven Sisters, documenting the ways in which they stopped shaping American culture and began to be shaped by it. After reviewing and critiquing the standard decline narrative of the Mainline he argues for a reconceptualization of the Mainline for the twenty-first century, a new grouping of Seven Sisters that seeks to recognize the vibrancy of American Christianity.
The average chess player spends too much time on studying opening theory. In his day, World Champion Emanuel Lasker argued that improving amateurs should spend about 5% of their study time on openings. These days club players are probably closer to 80%, often focusing on opening lines that are popular among grandmasters. Club players shouldn't slavishly copy the choices of grandmasters. GMs need to squeeze every drop of advantage from the opening and therefore play highly complex lines that require large amounts of memorization. The main necessity for club players is to emerge from the opening with a reasonable position, from which you can simply play chess and pit your own tactical and positional understanding against that of your opponent. Gerard Welling and Steve Giddins recommend the Old Indian-Hanham Philidor set-up as a basis for both Black and White. They provide ideas and strategies that can be learned in the shortest possible time and require the bare minimum of maintenance and updating. They deliver exactly what you need: rock-solid positions that you know how to handle. By adopting a similar set-up for both colours, with similar plans and techniques, you further reduce study time. With this compact and straightforward opening approach, Welling and Giddins argue, club players will have more time to focus on what is really decisive in the vast majority of non-grandmaster games: tactics, positional understanding and endgame technique.
In The Future of Evangelicalism in America, thematic chapters on culture, spirituality, theology, politics, and ethnicity reveal the sources of the movement's dynamism, as well as significant challenges confronting the rising generations. A collaboration among scholars of history, religious studies, theology, political science, and ethnic studies, the volume offers unique insight into a vibrant and sometimes controversial movement, the future of which is closely tied to the future of America.
Snider and Bowen, co-pastors of Brentwood Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a formerly graying congregation, provide a much-needed emerging resource that will benefit both progressive mainliners who value inclusivity, diversity, and social justice as well as emergents seeking a point of entry into progressive mainline traditions. The book grew from the authors' successful progressive worship service: "The Awakening" which has attracted a surge of young adults and young families to Brentwood. It offers connections among 1) prophetic biblical traditions; 2) progressive mainliners; 3) Emergents; and 4) postmodern theory and gives progressive communities of faith worship reflections and resources that will help them connect with emerging generations.
The political right is at an inflection point. The policies that have guided the conservative movement for decades are no longer relevant to the problems we face. Donald Trump's election exposed the vast chasm between the priorities of the conservative professional class, and those of the voters it purportedly serves. But this chasm existed long before it was exposed in 2016, and as we move further into the post-Trump era, these issues aren't going away. The right must contend with the forces that drove Trump to power. The American Conservative has been contending with those very forces for two decades. Launched in 2002 to reignite conversations conservatives had neglected for too long, the magazine has emerged as the best explainer of our present discontents—and the distinct “Main Street” conservatism that it forms as the best path forward. Main Street Conservatism: The Future of the Right takes seminal essays from TAC's robust back catalog and presents them in four broad topic areas that are driving our ongoing political realignment: foreign policy, political economy, American culture, and faith & family. TAC's prescience on these issues creates an anthology that is very much relevant to the issues we now face. The magazine was founded in opposition to the Iraq war, and has been a consistent proponent of a foreign policy fit for a republic, not an empire, ever since. Long before the 2008 financial crisis, the magazine warned of the pitfalls of globalization and an over-financialized economy. On immigration, TAC's prescience on these issues creates an anthology that is very much relevant to the issues we now inaugural editorial took seriously the challenge of assimilation, and placed the issue in the context of defending and defining a uniquely American culture. And all the while, the magazine has been mindful to robustly defend the bedrock of our society: faith and family. With essays from leading conservatives like Patrick J. Buchanan, Sir Roger Scruton, Walter McDougall, Robert W. Merry, Rod Dreher, and many more, Main Street Conservatism: The Future of the Right is far more than a disjointed anthology. The book, like the magazine from which it is taken, is indispensable for understanding American conservatism in our current moment.