"As a student of American religious history, I’d be hard pressed to dispute the conferees’ assessment of the state of mainline Protestantism. Like the Democratic Party, and for many of the same reasons, mainline Protestantism is virtually moribund at the turn of the twenty-first century. The reasons for its demise, however, should provide a cautionary tale to evangelicals in their quest for political and cultural influence. In the years following World War II, mainline Protestants-Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and northern Baptists-plunged head-long into a movement called ecumenism, which sought to elide the theological differences in the name of Christian unity. Protestant ecumenism in the 1950s was in part a cold war construct; we Americans felt that we had to show the world, particularly the Communists, that America was a godly nation. In the rush toward religious and theological consensus, however, mainline Protestantism aligned itself more-or-less uncritically with white, middle-class American culture in the 1950s and early 1960s. This fusion was nicely symbolized by Dwight Eisenhower’s laying the cornerstone for the Interchurch center in upper Manhattan on October 12, 1958. The presence of the president of the United States at this event lent a kind of legitimacy to mainline Protestantism and provided at least a veneer of validation to its attempts to embody American, patriotic values. This was the era when “under God” was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” was emblazoned on our currency. But the lessons of American history and the example of mainline Protestantism teach us that religious fervor and conviction function best on the margins of society and not in the councils of power and influence. One reading of the demise of mainline Protestantism, then, is that it sought to ally itself too closely with middle-class values and the pursuit of cultural respectability in the 1950s; in the process, it lost its prophetic edge."