Book review: 'The End of White Christian America' part I: Distinctly Catholic: With his new book, The End of White Christian America, Robert P. Jones establishes himself in the top ranks of public intellectuals on the American left.
MGB: Although it is beyond the scope of the book, 1950s were also the high water mark for Catholic cultural power (as opposed to religious freedom). Of course, there are still white Christians who bomb Catholic Churches in Alabama - still adopting Luther's line that the Pope is the anti-Christ. I am sure that there are some WCAs who dislike Francis for his politics who are willing to go to that extreme. As for the 1980s, that unity was all about the faux issue of abortion (you have to have an agenda to be a real issue and trying to get the SCOTUS to decide against federal supremacy is no plan) and continuing resistance to gay rights (another settled issue - at least as far as marriage). Of course, scamming voters on whether an issue has any real possibility of change is a hallmark of reactionaries - which is certainly a feature of WCA, the USCCB and Trump (except that Trump does not know enough to know when an issue is dead).
So why the decline? I am going to guess what may be in tomorrow's essay and say it is people staying home on Sunday (and counting that as quitting religion) and intermarriage, both on racial and religious grounds. While this is more likely among Catholics, it is a trend everywhere - even in the South.
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