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Elaine Pagels, the famous historian of early Christianity, once told a revealing story about the social world behind the scenes of high-powered biblical scholarship. As a young up-and-coming professor at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, she was invited to a closed-door, after-hours smoker. The men there (Pagels was the only woman) were all prominent Bible scholars. Many of them didn't even believe in God, and those who still called themselves Christian were anything but orthodox.

The liquor flowed freely, and as these men got in their cups, they began to sing old gospel songs. To her astonishment, they knew all the tunes and words by heart. Then it dawned on her—these atheist and liberal Bible scholars must have grown up in evangelical churches.

Had Pagels herself grown up in evangelicalism she might not have been so surprised. Evangelicals have long known that it is easy for individuals and institutions—especially professors and universities—to slide down the slippery slope from orthodoxy to infidelity. Once down the slope, there's usually no climbing back up. It's a one-way street from evangelicalism to liberalism, a street that many individuals and colleges, and all the mainline Protestant denominations, have gone down. This bit of evangelical folk wisdom has a counterpart in sociology's sect-to-church theory. This theory claims that orthodox religious groups in a secular environment will gradually and inevitably become more like their environment. Once secularized, they do not again become orthodox.

As American evangelicals move into the 21st century, however, we may soon witness a new thing under the sun. Contrary to folk wisdom and traditional sociological theory, the mainline Protestant denominations may be poised for a historic change—a return to orthodox Christianity.

Judging by the recent headlines, the mainline Protestant denominations seem as liberal in theology as ever. United Methodist Bishop Joseph Sprague recently restated the old liberal creed for a Methodist seminary audience by asserting that Jesus was Joseph's biological son, that he never performed any supernatural miracles, that his body was never raised from the dead, and that the orthodox creeds of the historic church are true only to the extent that they mean something different than they say.

In response, a group of Methodist evangelicals slapped Sprague with a heresy complaint—his fourth so far. And for the fourth time Methodist officials dismissed the complaint out of hand, praising Sprague and dressing down the complainants. As Methodist theologian Richard Steele told Christianity Today, "It's hard to imagine any theological position that would get you convicted of heresy in the United Methodist Church—except, perhaps, for teaching that heresy deserves to be a chargeable offense."

It may come as a surprise, then, that underneath the surface evangelical forces are reshaping mainline Protestantism. In every mainline denomination, evangelical clergy and laity have organized what they call renewal organizations. There are now upward of 30 such groups. Collectively, they are revitalizing worship, reviving evangelism, and reforming the theology of mainline churches.

In the past evangelicals have tried to reform the denominations, but each time they failed. Denominational officials were always able to squelch dissent through astute bureaucratic maneuvering.

This time, however, things look different. New studies by sociologists Rodney Stark, Roger Finke, and Jennifer McKinney, the coauthor of this article, show that contemporary renewal groups have greater staying power and more supporters than ever before. They are committed to remaining within their denominations rather than leaving. For the first time, the renewal movements are also cooperating with each other across denominational lines. Opposition by denominational officials, though strenuous at times, has been less consistent and less effective than in the past. Renewal clergy are actually younger than liberal clergy, raising the possibility that liberals are living on borrowed time.

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August 2003, Vol. 47, No. 8