Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
The Realignment of American Christianity

The Realignment of American Christianity

Last updated on: March 23, 2021 at 2:54 am by Chris Gehrz

The Realignment of American Christianity 2021-03-21T18:43:33-04:00 Chris Gehrz

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Before we get too far away from the still-startling news that the popular writer and speaker Beth Moore is leaving the Southern Baptist Convention, let me come back to one detail in Bob Smietana’s story, easy to overlook:

She looked at joining another denomination, perhaps becoming a Lutheran or a Presbyterian, but in her heart, she remains Baptist.

It wasn’t that long ago that I left my evangelical denomination to join the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — well, the ELCA church down the street — while remaining, at heart, an Evangelical Covenanter. So I couldn’t help but imagine a still-Baptist Beth Moore joining a Lutheran church like mine.

https://twitter.com/cgehrz/status/1369378891324854282

On its face — as we tend to turn these categories into caricatures — it seems unlikely. How could a theologically conservative Baptist feel at home in a congregation full of Christians sprinkled as infants, wondering how many of them actually believe all of the creed they recite (“born of the virgin Mary… the resurrection of the body…”)? Would she want to sit under the preaching of a pastor educated at a liberal seminary and overseen by a bishop?

Perhaps Moore meant that she was considering the Missouri Synod Lutheran church in Houston… but that denomination, like the SBC, doesn’t allow women to serve as pastors. Women currently make up around a third of the ELCA’s clergy (including my pastor, bishop, and the denomination’s presiding bishop) and a larger share of its seminarians. If Beth Moore wanted to take to an ELCA pulpit herself, I doubt any of that denomination’s seminary leaders — most of whom are women — would echo Al Mohler’s claim that “God intends for the preaching voice to be a male voice.” In a church like mine, the sound of a woman’s preaching voice would be neither controversial nor deployed as a distraction from the problem of sexual abuse. (Which is not unknown in the ELCA, but nowhere near the level of the scandal roiling different conservative Baptist groups.)

And given the other issues that pushed Moore out of the SBC, it may seem like a mainline church would be a likely refuge for an evangelical “woke” enough to criticize Donald Trump and talk openly about racial injustice. (Let alone read this blog.) But in the ELCA, she’d find a loudly anti-racist denomination… that’s even less racially diverse than the SBC. She’d read statements and maybe hear sermons opposing the Christian nationalism and science denialism of the Trump era… and eventually realize that a significant share of those in the pews nevertheless supported Trump and his party.

New York’s Interchurch Center, home to the mainline Protestant National Council of Churches until 2013 – CC BY-SA 2.0 (Ken Lund)

Look, I know that Beth Moore’s not joining a Lutheran church. So why bother thinking about this hypothetical?

Because I think it suggests how 20th century religious categories are increasingly inadequate to describe 21st century religious realities.

And because while I continue to anticipate that “evangelicalism will go through a painful period of realignment, as people much less famous than Beth Moore make their own choices about how they will and won’t participate in institutions like the SBC,” I also suspect that the realignment will not stop with evangelicalism. Moore’s story makes me ask more publicly a question that’s been much on my mind the last few years:

What will take the place of the mainline-evangelical divide within American Protestantism?

The very fact that I assume Protestantism will continue to be a thing — and that that word still subdivides into categories like Baptist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian — suggests that religious realignments can outlast centuries’ worth of other changes.

But they are rarely so permanent. Moore’s now-former denomination is one remnant of the sectional divide over slavery that split white Protestants before the Civil War, but went away in the 20th century. Meanwhile, late 19th century newcomers to this country sorted themselves into churches by ethnicity, not just theology, but such distinctions made less and less difference to their Americanized descendants. (The ELCA has something like twenty ancestors in its denominational family tree, starting with the German- and Scandinavian-American synods that later came together as the American Lutheran Church and Lutheran Church in America.)

It’s been something like a century now since the fundamentalist-modernist controversy gave us the familiar bifurcation of American Protestantism. That split has never been all that tidy; defining either branch has never been as simple as compiling lists of denominations. But at least for a while, the words mainline and evangelical suggested meaningful divides among Christians who couldn’t agree about questions as important as how to read the Bible, how to live out the church’s mission, or how to relate to modern culture.

Those divides haven’t gone away, but I’m not sure they’re as important as other fissures in shaping how Protestants identify and organize themselves. Isn’t it possible that we’re seeing realignment around other fault lines?

The largest Presbyterian church in Moore’s home town of Houston left the PCUSA over sexuality five years ago – CC BY-SA 3.0 (i_am_jim)

Sexuality seems like the obvious one, with the country’s largest mainline denomination on the verge of voting itself into official schism over this issue, and others (including the ELCA) already have gone through smaller versions of that split. That sorting looks different in the evangelical world, with denominations, universities, publishers, and other institutions’ gatekeepers largely toeing the conservative line and individuals, families, and congregations on the other side of it either being forced out or opting to leave. As younger evangelicals increasingly diverge from their parents and grandparents on matters of sexuality, will they simply move over to what’s left of the mainline — or could those lines start to blur?

But my Beth Moore-as-Lutheran hypothetical points more clearly to two other sources of realignment. First, over Christian nationalism…

I do not believe these are days for mincing words. I’m 63 1/2 years old & I have never seen anything in these United States of America I found more astonishingly seductive & dangerous to the saints of God than Trumpism. This Christian nationalism is not of God. Move back from it.

— Beth Moore (@BethMooreLPM) December 13, 2020

As sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry point out in their book, Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, the evangelical-mainline divide isn’t actually the best predictor of religious political behavior in recent years: “Rather, it is the degree to which Americans—perceiving current political conflicts through the lens of Christian nationalism—wish to institutionalize conservative ‘Christian’ cultural preferences in America’s policies and self-identity.” In the age of Trump, they found that the sizable minority of mainliners who strongly advocate Christian nationalism had more in common with like-minded evangelicals than with fellow mainliners who reject the idea of America being a Christian nation. Whitehead and Perry concluded “that Christian nationalism is at least one axis upon which the restructuring of American religion has taken place.”

Another axis could be defined by views on gender. Reading the introduction to Beth Barr’s book in the wake of Beth Moore’s announcement, it wasn’t hard to imagine more and more Christians — women and men — asking why they remain within institutions that may share some of their theology, but also deny women’s gifts and calling, dismiss their concerns about misogyny and sexual assault, or demean anyone who doesn’t conform to a certain construction of gender roles.

I don’t imagine that such shifts will quickly blur or erase older lines. Competing institutions have been erected on either side of the mainline-evangelical and other divides, and institutions rarely hurry to accept their obsolescence. Most of the change will happen on the level of individuals, couples, and families — some loud, most quiet, almost all of it painful.

But one way or another, “what was done can be undone,” as Kristin Du Mez concluded her study of militant masculinity in evangelicalism. If not by reform or renewal, “undoing” can happen through realignment — as Christians start to attend different churches, consume different media, send their kids to different schools and colleges, vote for different candidates, support different causes, and identify themselves using different terms..

Chris Gehrz

Evangelicalism

Mainline Protestantism

Baptists

Beth Moore

Christian nationalism

gender

Lutherans

religious realignment

sexuality

Previous Post

March 22, 2021

For God So Loved the World He Gave Us Sundried Tomatoes

Next Post

March 24, 2021 Will Reformed Evangelicalism Divide Over Racial Politics? The 19th-Century Stone-Campbell Movement Offers a Clue

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe guest post Guest Post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was Jacob’s only daughter?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Leah Rachel Tamar Dinah