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According to The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy, that is exactly what has happened. The most extensive survey of clergy politics since the 1960s, the book—published five years ago, but losing none of its relevance in the interim—is an indispensable guide to the political attitudes and activities of both evangelical and mainline Protestant pastors. Coauthored by James Guth, John Green, Corwin Smidt, Lyman Kellstedt, and Margaret Poloma, it is based on surveys of over 5,000 clergy in four evangelical denominations (Assemblies of God, Southern Baptist Convention, Evangelical Covenant Church, Christian Reformed Church) and four mainline denominations (Reformed Church in America, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church-USA, Disciples of Christ). 8

Using a battery of theological questions (on biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth, Jesus and salvation), the authors divide their sample into "orthodox" and "modernist" clergy. One of the most striking findings of the book is that orthodox clergy are increasingly likely to report a high level of interest and involvement in politics. For example, 79 percent of the "most orthodox" and 83 percent of the "most modernist" pastors reported a "high level of interest in politics." Likewise, 95 percent of the "most modernist" and 92 percent of the "most orthodox" said they had taken a public stand on a political issue.

The political transformation of evangelical clergy from private to public Protestants can be seen most dramatically among Southern Baptist respondents. Between 1980 and 1992 the percentage of the "most orthodox" Southern Baptist pastors approving of protest marches "rose from 19 percent to 52 percent; of action groups, from 42 percent to 55 percent; and of joining national political organizations, from 31 percent to 42 percent."

While modernists were more likely to have formed a political study group in their church, contributed money to a political candidate and joined a national political organization, there were much smaller differences between modernist and orthodox approval of pastoral "cue-giving activities." In fact, the surveys show that orthodox clergy were more likely than their modernist counterparts to approve of pastors taking a public stand on a "moral issue," and more likely to say that they have endorsed a candidate from the pulit or publicly prayed for a candidate. The very denominations that have grown the most since the 1960s (the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God) have also experienced a surge in clergy activism.

The robust civic engagement of Protestant clergy flies in the face of Robert Putnam's "bowling alone" thesis. Still, the question remains: which vision of civic life are Protestant clergy trying to promote? Are modernist and orthodox clergy engaged in a "culture war" between liberal and conservative visions of the common good?

According to Nancy Ammerman, the answer is no. In Congregation and Community she writes that "most of the people we met have simply not learned the ideological lesson that if they believe in promoting social justice, they should place less emphasis on witnessing; or—at the other pole—that if they believe in witnessing, they should be wary of calls for social justice." She notes that other studies of lay public opinion have found the same thing.

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