An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and Spirit of America

In the quiet streets of small-town America, the fading silhouette of a Protestant church steeple tells a story of profound transformation. For generations, Mainline Protestant churches were the beating heart of American public life, shaping not only faith but also culture, politics, and social norms. This religious tradition provided a moral vocabulary that united communities and gave meaning to the American experiment. Yet, from the 1960s onward, this great river began to run shallow, and by the 1990s, its waters had nearly disappeared.

Consider Bonnie Paisley, a woman living in Oregon, whose life encapsulates this shift. Raised in a family once deeply rooted in Presbyterianism, Bonnie now lives without formal religion, yet carries the moral residues of her Protestant heritage. Her carefully curated home, with its environmental touches and New Age crystals, is a testament to a spirituality unmoored from traditional faith but still searching for meaning. She is part of a growing class of Americans who, while rejecting explicit Christianity, remain deeply anxious about moral and social order.

This post-Protestant class, often college-educated and politically liberal, embodies a paradox. They are morally confident, judging society with the certainty of their ancestors, yet they have stripped away the theological foundations that once grounded that certainty. Their spirituality is one of social awareness and opposition to perceived evils—bigotry, militarism, corruption—rather than personal salvation. They represent a spiritual evolution, or perhaps a dissolution, of the Protestant ethic into a secular moralism.

The collapse of Mainline Protestantism is not merely a religious event; it is a cultural earthquake. Its institutions, once central to American identity, have lost their grip, leaving a vacuum that no single tradition has yet filled. The post-Protestants are heirs to this legacy, carrying forward its anxieties and aspirations in new and sometimes contradictory forms.

As we begin this journey, keep in mind that understanding this transformation is key to grasping the broader spiritual and cultural shifts in America today. The story of Mainline Protestantism's decline and the rise of the post-Protestant class sets the stage for exploring how Catholicism and other forces have responded to this new landscape.

Let us now move deeper into the social and theological currents that have shaped this anxious age.