Sublime

Henry Coswell remarked in 1839 that “religious mania is said to be the prevailing form of insanity in the United States.”[11]

And if this is generally true, and we believe it is, then we can logically say that not living in exile over the past few hundred years, having comfort and power in society as Christians, has hindered gospel progress.

One of the most influential books about American religion in the past five decades was Why Conservative Churches Are Growing, by Dean M. Kelley, first published in 1972.

“The Christians... ran a miniature welfare state in an empire which for the most part lacked social services.”

true religion flourishes most within the communal framework of a “church.”

From World War II all the way to the mid-1990s, church membership among adults was nearly always above 70 percent.

the consolidation of people into larger and larger churches, the increasing frailty of small “ordinary congregations,”