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In his The Genius of American Politics (University of Chicago Press, 1953), historian Daniel J. Boorstin observed the "generalized religion" that was having an effect on "those few religions—like Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and the uncompromising minor Protestant sects—which have remained socially or doctrinally unassimilated." (He regarded my Lutheran church, exotic to him as a secularized Jew, to be among the "uncompromising" and "intransigent Protestant sects.") They "remained in a sense 'un-American' because they [had] not yet completely taken on the color of their environment."

"Such sects," he added, "while accepting the moral premises of the community, can still try to judge the community by some standard outside its own history. But even these religions often take on a peculiar American complexion and tend toward validating themselves by their accord with things as they are."

Boorstin cited historian Edward Gibbon on the age of the Antonines and applied his observation to Americans and their support for their own civil religion: "The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful."

I don't think Boorstin would think any of "us" semi-outsiders came through very well. We "won" some things to help form the culture and to make our way into it, but then over-adapted. Now when evangelicals are the most depended-upon supporters of the civil religion and the market ideology and the most "useful" to those in power, he might very well ask, "Why do you gripe? You won!"

A half century has passed since Boorstin wrote. He did not prescribe for any of the groups, and I do not have credentials or invitation to do so for evangelicalism. I intend to keep observing, prayerfully, to see how things turn out.

Martin E. Marty is Fairfax Cone Distinguished Professor at the University of Chicago's Divinity School. He is the coauthor, most recently, of Visions of Utopia (Oxford, 2003). This article is based on remarks to the National Association of Evangelicals convention in 2003.

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Also posted today is Martin E. Marty's look at the 25th birthday of Christianity Today.

More on Martin E. Marty is available from his faculty page on the University of Chicago web site.

More on Evangelicalism is available on our dedicated page.

Marty is senior editor at The Christian Century.

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February 2004, Vol. 48, No. 2