My morning commute is a study in contrasts, starting from the western edge of Philadelphia, where the streets can be scruffy and mean, and passing through the always tidy and expensive neighborhoods of the suburban “mainline.” The mainline’s namesake is evident along my way—stately churches amid stately homes. But evangelical Protestantism is also evident and, as in other areas of the country, it is in these churches where the lion’s share of Protestant growth is to be found. Some vibrant churches in the area are part of mainline denominations, but often the most successful ones lean toward an evangelical ethos. Religiously speaking, the local mainline scene conforms to a national mainline stereotype.
It would seem, therefore, that a study of mainline (some say “oldline”) Protestantism’s influence on public life should make for a short book. Is there anything interesting to say about the public role of a declining religious tradition? Clearly there is, as Robert Wuthnow and John H. Evans meticulously document in The Quiet Hand of God, a work that goes far beyond mere cataloging past achievements.
The book is the product of a three-year project directed by Wuthnow and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. One of seven such studies (the others examine the public role of evangelical Protestantism, African American Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Hispanic Christianity, and Islam in America), the mainline project commissioned an impressive collection of chapters, albeit Princeton- and sociology-centric: ten chapters are written by authors with a Princeton affiliation; only five of the 20 contributors are non-sociologists.
Subjects attended to include not only mainline Protestant history (Peter J. Thuesen offers an elegant historical overview of “The Logic of Mainline Churchliness”) but also the mainline’s contemporary demography, civic activities, political opinion and behavior, and organizations—from Washington offices to women’s groups. There is also a range of chapters devoted to specific issue domains: racial justice, social welfare, the environment, homosexuality, the family, church and state, shareholder activism, and foreign policy.
The editors wisely avoid framing the inquiry exclusively within a stock narrative of mainline declension—a topic about which much has already been written, too often for the purpose of grinding one ax or another. While the precipitous decline in attendance, membership, and financial contributions endured by mainline Protestantism over the last three decades is certainly related to its prospects for exerting influence in public life, “influence” comes in many guises. Some make a lot of noise in the public square; others, as the title of the book suggests, are quieter yet important nonetheless. Tactics, methodologies, timing, policy substance, access, expertise, relationships … all can be as important as the size of one’s mailing list.
Nor do the editors allow the book to get bogged down trying to answer the question of why mainliners have not been keeping up with the evangelical Joneses. To be sure, several of the chapters do isolate distinctives of mainline Protestantism by comparing it systematically with evangelicalism and other religious traditions. But in terms of influence on public life, there are numerous ways in which the comparison can become biased. For instance, if points for “influence” are awarded disproportionately on the basis of media capabilities, evangelicalism will of course appear more influential. Thankfully, this volume avoids such pitfalls.
More broadly, scholars of mobilization have to take into account the relative size and potentialities of the groups they study. Evangelicalism is now larger (especially when defined by a combination of doctrinal and denominational criteria) than mainline Protestantism. Normative considerations aside, by simple force of democratic representation evangelicals ought to have more influence than mainliners.
What’s more, the success of the Christian Right in mobilizing evangelicalism is often greatly exaggerated, particularly by the media. Wuthnow et al. rightly resist the tendency to present the Christian Right as a benchmark success story against which all others must be measured. After all, we could just as easily ask why the Christian Right has “only” mobilized a few hundred thousand genuinely active members, when there are tens of millions of politically conservative evangelicals in the United States.
Critics of mainline involvement in public life often paint an image of fecklessness matched only by naïveté—sanctimonious church bureaucrats cranking out leftist tracts from the “God Box,” most of which are politely ignored by policymakers. There may be a grain of truth in these characterizations. Still, there is public life outside the Beltway, and mainliners are up to their eyeballs in it.
All of the chapters in The Quiet Hand are well researched, but three data sources offer especially compelling empirical evidence. A chapter by Mark Chaves, Helen M. Giesel, and William Tsitsos skillfully mines a survey of congregations, while Nancy Ammerman’s chapter does the same with her own congregational survey. Findings of a poll of the general public, commissioned specifically for the mainline project, are summarized by Wuthnow.
The congregational-level data show that mainliners are standouts in forming partnerships with organizations outside their own denomination; they excel at a bridging mode of engagement with the wider civil society. Mainline congregations are also more likely than other Christian congregations to engage in social services, educational projects, ecumenical cooperation, cultural and artistic activities, and community programs (findings that survive rigorous statistical controls).
Wuthnow’s individual level data also offer some good news. Mainliners report high levels of volunteering, particularly outside their own congregation. And they report high levels of approval of congregational engagement in public life. Notwithstanding the recent politics of the faith-based initiative and Charitable Choice, mainliners are more likely than evangelicals to support the idea of congregations receiving public funds for social service programs. Nor are average mainliners especially gloomy about their influence on public life. Only 24 percent think their denomination’s public influence is less now than it was in the 1960s, the halcyon days of mainline activism.
When it comes to direct participation in politics, however, a divergence emerges between individual and institutional proclivities. As individual citizens, Wuthnow finds, mainliners exhibit higher levels of political participation than individuals in most other religious groups. Yet Chaves finds that mainline congregations are significantly less likely than other congregations to participate in a demonstration, organize voter registration, or distribute voter guides. Wuthnow’s data are also suggestive in that mainliners are less likely than evangelicals to say they want to see their denomination doing more to influence public policy and less likely to want religious leaders forming political movements. Findings like these may have something to do with the paltry financial support mainliners give their national offices.
The mainline exudes another kind of political ambivalence, too. As Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks note in their chapter, because of their realignment from the partisan right to the partisan center, coupled with their overall decline as a proportion of the electorate, mainliners are not a leading factor in either party’s electoral coalition.
Nevertheless, contributors to this volume are alert to several significant examples of mainline influence on policy: maintaining the federal entitlement status of food stamps (Brian Steensland); preventing a rollback of the Endangered Species Act (Michael Moody); shareholder activism on issues like South African apartheid and marketing of infant formula in poor countries (Lynn Robinson); and international debt relief (Lester Kurtz and Kelly Goran Fulton).
This is not to say that The Quiet Hand is shy about criticizing the mainline. Some approach from the left. Bradford Verter’s chapter on racial justice activism is the most polemical, heaping scorn on the mainline for paternalism and unwillingness to relinquish power: “mainline congregations are de facto agents of racial apartheid,” he writes. Others approach from the right. W. Bradford Wilcox takes the mainline to task for claiming to champion the well-being of children while having very little to say about the consequences of divorce.
Different contributors apportion their criticisms and kudos in different ways, but the overall tenor of the volume is one of fairness. The project’s priority on being constructive is evident in that many chapter conclusions have subheadings like “Proposals for the Future” and “Resources and Recommendations.”
Where this volume falls short is in boldness for re-imagining the future institutional and ideological contours of mainline Protestantism. Many of the recommendations would have the mainline be a better version of its current self. Several contributors complain about bureaucratic inefficiency without suggesting that any specific offices be closed. And the volume is silent on recent discussions of moving beyond the National Council of Churches model of ecumenism to achieve a broader association that finally manages to bring some evangelicals and Catholics on board.
To some, “mainline” once meant mainstream, the vital center in American Christianity. Recovering that center will require more than simply an oppositional posture toward the excesses of the Christian Right. It will require that the irresponsible Left also be convincingly rebuked. And it will require the hard work of genuine coalition-building with moderate evangelicals and Catholics—coalitions that would not require the mainline to somehow abandon its virtues of tolerance and compassion, but which might stand a better chance of getting policymakers to notice the hand of God.
Dennis R. Hoover is executive director of the Council on Faith & International Affairs at the Institute for Global Engagement, Eastern University, St. Davids, Pennsylvania.
Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine. Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.
