Christianity's American Fate

A conversation with historian David Hollinger about the rise of evangelicalism, the decline of mainline Protestantism, and the nature of America's secularism.

The contemporary rise of Christian nationalism in the US is a reactionary response to the country’s liberalization over the past half-century.

Evangelicalism and the more liberal “mainline” Protestantism must be understood in a dialectical relationship to one another, rather than in isolation.

In the 1990s, liberal intellectuals complained that evangelicals were moralistic on political questions. Now the complaint is reversed.