The end of White Christian America

Summary: America is no longer a majority white Christian nation. In this book, leading scholar Robert R Jones explains how this seismic change has profoundly altered the politics and social values of the United States. For most of the country's history, White Christian America--the cultural and political edifice built primarily by white Protestant Christians--set the tone for our national policy and shaped American ideals. But in recent decades new immigration patterns, changing birth rates, and religious disaffiliation have transformed the United States. The year 1993 was the last in which white Protestants constituted a majority of the population. Even when Catholics are included, white Christians make up less than half the country. Drawing on findings from one of the largest troves of survey data on contemporary politics and religion, Robert Jones shows how today's most heated controversies--the strident rise of a white "politics of nostalgia" following the election of the nation's first black president; the apocalyptic tone of arguments over same-sex marriage and religious liberty; and stark disagreements between white and black Americans over the fairness of the justice system--can be fully understood only in the context of the anxieties that white Christians feel as the racial, religious, and cultural landscape has changed around them. Today, although they still retain considerable power in the South and within the Republican Party, white Christians lack their former political and social clout. Looking ahead, Jones forecasts the ways that white Christians might adjust to their new reality--and the consequences for the country if they don't.--Adapted from dust jacket.