I do not, therefore, think that it is proper to characterize this transition as either good or bad for American religion. It simply is a fact of life. Religion in this country has always combined tribal thinking with cultural upheaval and social amalgamations. By tribal thinking I refer to the fact that the ancestors of most Roman Catholic Americans come out of Ireland, Italy and Southern and Eastern Europe. The ancestors of Presbyterians come primarily out of Scotland. The ancestors of Episcopalians come out of England and the ancestors of Lutherans come out of Northern Germany and Scandinavia. By cultural upheaval and social amalgamations I mean those wide associations that carry us across ethnic lines and are always present in a democracy combined as it is with the impact of modern education. It was once true that the various denominations represented various social standings. I recall a book entitled The Status Seekers, written by Vance Packard some 50 years ago, in which one chapter described what Packard called “The Long Road from Pentecostal to Episcopal.” Today, however, in the light of modern education many people no longer seek social prominence in their new choices of churches, so much as they simply choose to leave religion altogether.

The traditional church always fights every new intellectual insight, making it difficult for educated people not to stray. Recall the fate of Galileo in the 17th Century. Observe how the church still fights Darwin with such silly things as intelligent design. Look at the present debate in the church over homosexuality in which people use a definition of homosexuality that is no longer saluted anywhere in scientific or medical circles upon which to justify their prejudice. When knowledge collides with traditional faith change is inevitable. I welcome it and if the church cannot engage this intellectually driven change, then it probably should die.