In his column in the New York Times, Ross Douthat chronicles the decline of liberal Protestantism.
The Episcopal Church and other mainline denominations were once pillars of the WASP establishment, providing religious leadership and inspiration in nation-defining events such as the civil rights movement. Now? Well, these Christian churches have so thoroughly embraced the social mores of our secular elites that they’ve lost a great deal of their distinctive purpose. Why go to church when you can get what you need by reading the editorial pages of the New York Times?
The self-destruction of mainline Protestantism is an often told story. But Douthat makes an important observation.
If liberals need to come to terms with these failures, religious conservatives should not be smug about them. The defining idea of liberal Christianity—that faith should spur social reform as well as personal conversion—has been an immensely positive force in our national life. No one should wish for its extinction, or for a world where Christianity becomes the exclusive property of the political right.
I would go a step further. The decline of liberal Protestantism has played an important role in the political polarization of America. By and large, the secular Left has come to dominate the Democratic Party. One effect has been to drive religious voters toward the Republican Party, turning our political life into one of the primary places for working out a struggle to define the future of American culture. It’s because institutions like the Episcopal Church have become irrelevant that there are few moderating forces at work on the Left today.
The decline of mainline Protestantism has meant the decline of Christian influence over American elite culture. No Christian (or Jew or Muslim, for that matter) ought to celebrate the end of liberal Christianity. It hasn’t meant the end of liberalism, only the end of a religiously and morally serious liberalism. That’s been bad for America, and bad for religious Americans.
July 16th, 2012 | 10:16 am
Normally I agree with R.R, Reno, but I believe he’s got it backwards in this case. I’d suggest that the last sentence in his penultimate paragraph should read:
It’s because there are few moderating forces at work on the Left today that institutions like the Episcopal Church have become irrelevant.
July 16th, 2012 | 11:16 am
Another important factor is the decline of the kind of liberal Catholicism that is truly Catholic. Tragically, many Catholic “progressives” veered off into theological dissent, and therefore, instead of acting to moderate the social radicalism of the left, have either gone along with it or enthusiastically embraced it. There are honorable exceptions. Of course, Catholics did not influence the left by being part of the “social elite”, but by forming the backbone of the Democratic electorate in many parts of the country. Much of that backbone turned to jelly.
July 16th, 2012 | 1:05 pm
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July 16th, 2012 | 4:09 pm
I respectfully submit that it is anachronistic to clal liberal Protentatism “mainline.” Evangelicals, i think, are much more numerous and influential in the country as a whole.
July 16th, 2012 | 6:23 pm
I dunno, I think Douthat’s treading on thin ice here.
The essay sounds too much as if he believes the line that conservative Christians don’t engage in social reform. For example, he implies that Catholic hospitals and other institutions of social reform were founded exclusively by “progressive” Catholics. I find it hard to believe that there was there even such a notion, back when those hospitals were founded. What he calls “progressive” was simply what all Christians did, once upon a time — and what some of us still do, without abandoning Christian faith.
July 16th, 2012 | 10:03 pm
“I would go a step further. The decline of liberal Protestantism has played an important role in the political polarization of America. By and large, the secular Left has come to dominate the Democratic Party. One effect has been to drive religious voters toward the Republican Party, turning our political life into one of the primary places for working out a struggle to define the future of American culture. It’s because institutions like the Episcopal Church have become irrelevant that there are few moderating forces at work on the Left today.”
I see…so if the left is secular it is “radical” (badly understood the term, as it is usually understood). But if the left is religious, it is “moderate”. Thank goodness t the fundamentalists voices that so loudly sound inside the right, are just moderates alienated by the secular left. Yeah right!
July 17th, 2012 | 9:22 am
Sergio Méndez Thank goodness t the fundamentalists voices that so loudly sound inside the right, are just moderates alienated by the secular left. Yeah right!
Actually, there’s truth to that.
July 17th, 2012 | 11:23 am
“No Christian (or Jew or Muslim, for that matter) ought to celebrate the end of liberal Christianity.”
A couple of issues with this statement. There is the demise of liberal Christianity and there is the precursor liberalizing of the “mainline” denominations. It should be abundantly clear to all but the ostriches that liberals Christianity is doomed. Liberal Judaism should be included. Both are merely step-off’s to nothingness.
I really don’t see anyone celebrating the demise of liberal pseudo-Christianity that starts and stops at the golden rule: “Let’s all be nice and coexist”. It is true that that liberal pseudo-Christianity needs to die. It is heresy. But the really horribly sad act is the turning of these once-great institutions to the liberal inoffensive pap. There are millions of older Americans who are currently in mourning for the TEC, ELCA, PCUSA.
The lesson of the Episcopal denomination is that once again it is shown that one can’t be sexually “inclusive” and maintain core Christian doctrine.
July 17th, 2012 | 11:40 am
Someone could just as easily write, “By and large, the religious Right has come to dominate the Republican Party. One effect has been to drive secular voters toward the Democratic Party, turning our political life into one of the primary places for working out a struggle to define the future of American culture.”
Non-religious voters are few enough in number in the U.S. that it doesn’t make much sense to assign broad social trends to them. By contrast, white evangelicals make up about one quarter of the U.S. population and they tend to disproportionately associate with the Republican Party. Catholics and Mainline Protestants tend to split pretty evenly between the political parties.
People tend to forget that while the Democratic Party is composed of many different coalitions, by the numbers, its largest group of voters is not atheist college professors but rather about 40% of fairly ordinary white people who raise families, go to church and live in the suburbs.
July 18th, 2012 | 12:57 am
Sergio Méndez Thank goodness t the fundamentalists voices that so loudly sound inside the right, are just moderates alienated by the secular left. Yeah right!
Actually, there’s truth to that.
It doesn’t matter if 19% of the nation identifies as liberal and over 50% as conservative: liberals still insist that wanting radical changes to society, immediately, constitutes “the middle”, and anything to the right of that is “far right”.
I believe we can thank the New York Times for this weird effect.
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