Christianity's American Fate

Christianity’s American Fate (2022) situates the ascendancy of conservative Evangelicalism within the broader transformation of American religion.

"How did American Christianity become synonymous with conservative white evangelicalism? This nuanced and informative 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".

This book may be also taken as a contribution to the polarization thesis defended, in France, by Philippe Portier, Jean-Paul Willaime and Alain Dieckhoff.

A must-read.

'Fundamentalism and American Culture', third edition updated

'Fundamentalism and American Culture' (Marsden) has long been considered a classic in religious history, and to this day remains unsurpassed. Now available in a new edition, this highly regarded analysis takes us through the full history of the origin and direction of one of America's most influential religious movements.

In the twenty-first century, militantly conservative white evangelicals have become more prominent than ever in American life. Marsden's volume, which now takes the history through the end of the Trump administration, remains the essential starting point for understanding the degree to which that militancy has been shaped by the fundamentalist heritage of the twentieth century. 

To read more about this third and updated edition, click here (link)