Future of Religion in America Series

The Future of Evangelicalism in America

Edited by Candy Gunther Brown and Mark Silk

Columbia University Press, April 2016

In The Future of Evangelicalism in America, thematic chapters on culture, spirituality, theology, politics, and ethnicity reveal the sources of the movement’s dynamism, as well as significant challenges confronting the rising generations. A collaboration among scholars of history, religious studies, theology, political science, and ethnic studies, the volume offers unique insight into a vibrant and sometimes controversial movement, the future of which is closely tied to the future of America.

Volume Editor:

Candy Gunther Brown is professor of religious studies at Indiana University. Her books include The Word in the World: Evangelical Writing, Publishing, and Reading in America, 1789-1880 (2004); Testing Prayer: Science and Healing (2012); The Healing Gods: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Christian America (2013); and Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular Education or Reestablishing Religion? (2019).

Contents:

Series Editors’ Introduction: The Future of Religion in America, by Mark Silk and Andrew Walsh

Introduction, by Candy Gunther BrownAmerican Evangelicalism: Character, Function, and Trajectories of Change, by Michael S. Hamilton, professor emeritus of history at Seattle Pacific University.Sound, Style, Substance: New Directions in Evangelical Spirituality, by Chris R. Armstrong, senior editor of Christian History Magazine

The Emerging Divide in Evangelical Theology, by Roger E. Olson, professor of theology at the George W. Truett Seminary at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Evangelicals, Politics, and Public Policy: Lessons from the Past, Prospects for the Future, by Amy E. Black, associate professor of poltics and international relations at Wheaton College.

The Changing Face of Evangelicalism, by Timothy Tseng, Pacific Area Director for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship’s Graduate and Faculty Ministries

Conclusion, by Candy Gunther Brown

PUB DATE: April 2016

ISBN: 9780231176118

272 pages

FORMAT: Paperback

LIST PRICE: $35.00£27.00

PUB DATE: April 2016

ISBN: 9780231176101

272 pages

FORMAT: Hardcover

LIST PRICE: $105.00£81.00

PUB DATE: April 2016

ISBN: 9780231540704

272 pages

FORMAT: E-book

LIST PRICE: $34.99£27.00

The Future of Mainline Protestantism in America

Edited by James Hudnut-Beumler and Mark Silk

Columbia University Press, January 2018

Volume Editor:

James Hudnut-Beumler is the Anne Potter Wilson Distinguished Professor of American Religious History at Vanderbilt University. His books include Looking for God in the Suburbs: The Religion of the American Dream and Its Critics, 1945–1965 (1994); Generous Saints: Congregations Rethinking Ethics and Money (1999); and In Pursuit of the Almighty’s Dollar: A History of Money and American Protestantism (2007)

As recently as the 1960s, more than half of all American adults belonged to just a handful of mainline Protestant denominations—Presbyterian, UCC, Disciples of Christ, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and American Baptist. Presidents, congressmen, judges, business leaders, and other members of the elite overwhelmingly came from such backgrounds. But by 2010, fewer than 13 percent of adults belonged to a mainline Protestant church. What does the twenty-first century hold for this once-hegemonic religious group?

In this volume, experts in American religious history and the sociology of religion examine the extraordinary decline of mainline Protestantism over the past half century and assess its future. Contributors discuss the demographics of mainline Protestants; their beliefs, practices, and modes of worship; their political views and partisan affiliations; and the social and moral questions that unite and divide Protestant communities. Other chapters examine Protestant institutions, including providers of health care and education; analyze churches’ public voice; and probe what will come from a diminished role relative to other groups in society, especially the ascendant evangelicals. Far from going extinct, the book argues, the mainline Protestant movement will continue to be a vital remnant in an American religious culture torn between the contending forces of secularism and evangelicalism.

Series Editors’ Introduction: The Future of Religion in America, by Mark Silk and Andrew H. Walsh

Introduction, by James Hudnut-Beumler

The State of Contemporary Mainline Protestantism, by Graham Reside, Executive Director, Cal Turner Program in Moral Leadership for the Professions, sssistant professor, Vanderbilt University Divinity School

The Beliefs and Practices of Mainline Protestants, by David Bains, Professor Department of Biblical and Religious Studies Howard College of Arts and Sciences Samford University

Futures for Mainline Protestant Institutions, by Maria Erling, professor of modern church history and global mission at United Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

A Divided House, by Daniel Sack. Program officer in the research division of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Mainline and the Soul of International Relations, by Andrew H. Walsh, associate director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, Trinity College, Hartford.

Conclusion: The Quakerization of Mainline Protestantism, by James Hudnut-Beumler

PUB DATE: January 2018

ISBN: 9780231183611

248 pages

FORMAT: Paperback

LIST PRICE: $30.00£24.00

PUB DATE: January 2018

ISBN: 9780231183604

248 pages

FORMAT: Hardcover

LIST PRICE: $90.00£70.00

PUB DATE: January 2018

ISBN: 9780231545037

248 pages

FORMAT: E-book

LIST PRICE: $29.99£24.00

The Future of Catholicism in America

Edited by Patricia O’Connell Killen and Mark Silk

Columbia University Press, April 2019

Catholics constitute the largest religious community in the United States. Yet most American Catholics have never known a time when their church was not embroiled in controversies over liturgy, religious authority, cultural change, and gender and sexuality. Today, these arguments are taking place against the backdrop of Pope Francis’s progressive agenda and the resurgence of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. What is the future of Catholicism in America?

This volume considers the prospects at a pivotal moment. Contributors—scholars from sociology, theology, religious studies, and history—look at the church’s evolving institutional structure, its increasing ethnic diversity, and its changing public presence. They explore the tensions among members of the hierarchy, between clergy and laity, and along lines of ethnicity, immigration status, class, generation, political affiliation, and degree of religious commitment. They conclude that American Catholicism’s future will be pluriform—reflecting the variety of cultural, political, ideological, and spiritual points of view that typify the multicultural, democratic society of which Catholics constitute so large a part.

Volume Editor:

Patricia O’Connell Killen is professor of religious studies at Gonzaga University. Her books include The Art of Theological Reflection (1994) and Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest: The None Zone(2004).

Contents:

Series Editors’ Introduction: The Future of Religion in America, by Mark Silk and Andrew H. Walsh

Introduction: The Future of Roman Catholicism in the United States: Beyond the Subculture, by Patricia O’Connell Killen.

Catholicism Today: Adrift and/or Adjusting, by William D. Dinges, Ordinary Professor of Religion and Culture at the Catholic University of America.

Becoming Latino: The Transformation of U.S. Catholicism, by Timothy Matovina, professor of theology at Notre Dame University.

Since Vatican II: American Catholicism in Transition, by Steven M. Avella, professor of history at Marquette University.

Who Pastors: The Priest, the Context, and the Ministry, by Katarina Schuth, holds the Endowed Professorship for the Social Scientific Study of Religion at The Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinityat the University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul.

A Pluriform Unity: A Historian’s View of the Contemporary Church, by Joseph P. Chinnici, professor of church history at the Franciscan School of Theology at the University of San Diego.

Catholic Worship in a Contentious Age, by Andrew H. Walsh, associate director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life.

Public Catholicism:Contemporary Presence and Future Promise, by Richard L. Wood, is professor of sociology and Director of the Southwest Institute on Religion, Culture, and Society at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Conclusion: The Shape of the American Catholic Future, by Patricia O’Connell Killen

PUB DATE: April 2019

ISBN: 9780231191494

384 pages

FORMAT: Paperback

LIST PRICE: $35.00£27.00

PUB DATE: April 2019

ISBN: 9780231191487

384 pages

FORMAT: Hardcover

LIST PRICE: $105.00£81.00

PUB DATE: April 2019

ISBN: 9780231549431

384 pages

FORMAT: E-book

LIST PRICE: $34.99£27.00

Religion by Region Series

One Nation, Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics

Mark Silk and Andrew Walsh

From the evangelical South to Catholic New England to the ‘unchurched’ Pacific Northwest, regional religious differences have a dramatic impact on public life not only in the regions themselves but also in the United States as a whole. As the interplay between religion and politics continues to dominate public discussion, understanding regional similarities and differences is key to understanding the debate around such national issues as health care, immigration, and the environment. For the first time, One Nation, Divisible shows how geographical religious diversity has shaped public culture in eight distinctive regions of the country and how regional differences influence national politics.
Examining each region in turn, Mark Silk and Andrew Walsh provide historical context, stories that reveal the current cultural dynamics, and analyses of current politics to create rounded portraits of each region. They then present a compelling new account of the evolution of national religious politics since World War II. In doing so, they suggest that the regional religious forces that have fueled recent culture wars may be giving way to a less confrontational style rooted in different regional realities.

Edited by Wade Clark Roof and Mark Silk – Contributions by Phillip E. Hammond; George Tanabe; Susan Frankiel; Douglas Firth Anderson and David Machacek

“Pretty much like the rest of the country, only more so.” This quip from Wallace Stegner well-represents the Pacific region’s religious culture. California, Nevada, and Hawaii emerged more recently, more quickly and with more diversity and fluidity than the other United States. Although influenced by Mexican Catholicism, Native Traditions, Asian Religions, and Euro-American Christianity, no religious tradition dominates, and a secular ethos usually reigns. But this very religious indifference makes California and the rest of the region open to all sorts of missionary movements and religious innovations. New organizational forms, new spiritual therapies, and new religious hybrids all compete for residents’ attention along with secular ways for making meaning. With all these options, residents of the region mix, match, and move between religious identities more than other Americans. Without ignoring its diversity, Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Region highlights the key aspects of the region’s fluctuating religions and its spirituality’s impact on political life.

Edited by Mark Silk – Contributions by Ted Ownby; Lynn Lyerly; Sam Hill; Charles Reagan Wilson; Paul Harvey; William E. Montgomery; Charles Lippy and Andrew Manis

In July 2002 chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court had a two-ton monument of the Ten Commandments placed into the rotunda of the Montgomery state judicial building. But this action is only a recent case in the long history of religiously inspired public movements in the American South. From the Civil War to the Scopes Trial to the Moral Majority, white Southern evangelicals have taken ideas they see as drawn from the Christian Scriptures and tried to make them into public law. But blacks, women, subregions, and other religious groups too vie for power within and outside this Southern Religious Establishment. Religion and Public Life in the South gives voice to both the establishment and its dissenters and shows why more than any other region of the country, religion drives public debate in the South.

Religion and Public Life in New England: Steady Habits Changing Slowly

Edited by Andrew Walsh and Mark Silk – Contributions by Stephen Prothero; James M. O’Toole; Michele Dillon; Maria E. Erling and Daniel Terris

Although stoical New Englanders may not be showy about it, religion continues to play a powerful role in their culture. In fact, their very reticence to discuss religion may stem from long-standing religious divisions in the region. Beginning in the 1840s, Catholics flocked to the region and soon challenged the Protestant establishment. Tensions between the powerful mainline Protestant minority and the Catholic majority continues to today. This third volume in the Religion by Region series devotes many of its pages to these two dominant groups. Yet the roles of Conservative Protestants, African Americans & Jews are not overlooked. Religion and Public Life in New England also imagines the long-term effects of recent developments such as the arrival of non-Judeo-Christian religions to the region and the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal. Religion and Public Life in New England provides a very readable account of religion in this most regional of U.S. regions.
AltaMira Press

Religion and Public Life in the Midwest: America’s Common Denominator?

Edited by Philip Barlow and Mark Silk – Contributions by Mark Noll; L. DeAne Lagerquist; Jay Dolan; Raymond Williams; Lowell Livezey; Rhys Williams and Peter Williams

Not just in the middle geographically, the Midwest represents the American average in terms of beliefs, attitudes, and values. The region’s religious portrait matches the national religious portrait more closely than any other region. But far from making the Midwest dull, “average” means most every religious group and religious issue are represented in this region. Unlike other volumes in the series, Religion and Public Life in the Midwest includes a chapter devoted to a single city (Chicago), a chapter on a single Mainline Protestant denomination (Lutherans), and a chapter on religious variations in urban, surburan, and rural settings. This fourth book in the Religion by Region series does not neglect the pervasive image of the “typical” Midwesterner, but it does let the region’s marbled religious diversity come through.

Edited by Jan Shipps and Mark Silk – Contributions by Walter Nugent; Ferenc Morton Szasz; Kathleen Flake; Randi Jones Walker and Philip A. Deloria

Huge mountain ranges and vast uninhabited areas characterize the Mountain West. The region is home to several dense urban centers, but there is enough space between cities for three very distinct religious cultures to develop. Arizona and New Mexico’s religious public life is still dominated by the Catholic church which was in place three centuries before these areas became U.S. states. Mormons came to Utah and Idaho in the 19th century to set up their own church-state and only later were admitted to the Union. Religious minorities from Native Americans to ‘mainstream’ Protestants must contend with these religious establishments. In the third subregion of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana no one religious body dominates and many inhabitants claim no religious affiliation at all. Religion and Public Life in the Mountain West explores these three distinct religious regions but then goes on to see how they work together and what they have in common.

Other Publications:

Andrew Walsh, ed. Can Charitable Choice Work?: Covering Religion’s Impact on Urban Affairs and Social Services (Hartford, CT: Pew Program on Religion and the News Media and the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, 2001), 200 pages. (online edition requires Acrobat Reader)

Mark Silk, ed. Religion on the International News Agenda (Hartford, CT: Pew Program on Religion and the News Media and the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, 2000), 144 pages. ( online edition requires Acrobat Reader)

Mark Silk, ed. Religion and American Politics: The 2000 Election in Context (Hartford, CT: Pew Program on Religion and the News Media and the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, 2000), 88 pages. ( online edition requires Acrobat Reader)

Rosalind I. J. Hackett, Mark Silk, and Dennis Hoover, eds. Religious Persecution as a U.S. Policy Issue (Hartford, CT: Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, 2000), 60 pages. (pdf Acrobat file)

Is Religion Compatible With Liberal Democracy?, 1999 (22 pages)
by Marc D. Stern

The Catholic Church and the Holocaust: Perspectives on the Vatican Statement, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, 1998 (42 pages) (with the complete text of “We Remember”)