Mainline Church Decline and Evangelical Exile

Dotting many U.S. main streets are the steeples and towers of beautiful and historic buildings, originally built as houses of worship. From its founding, mainline denominations gave America a kind of Protestant consensus, much of our nation’s charity, many of its most prestigious schools, and a significant number of congressional leaders and even presidents. Today, many of these buildings, especially those draped with rainbow flags, lie empty. On Sundays, only a small number of worshipers, mostly white and grey-haired, sit in the pews.