@article{oai:icu.repo.nii.ac.jp:00000079,
 author = {Hall, David D.},
 issue = {42},
 journal = {人文科学研究 （キリスト教と文化）, Humanities: Christianity and Culture},
 month = {Mar},
 note = {Christianity in the United States is undergoing several transitions, or so
it is argued in provocative and important books published in recent years
(many more such books have appeared than could be cited in this essay).
This essay describes three such reports, each significantly different from
the other; and after doing so, takes up the question of how recent
developments and conflicts within Christianity in the United States affect
the work of historians, a question answered by looking at the “separation
of church and state,” a deeply contested matter in recent scholarship and
popular polemics; the history and significance of evangelicalism and
“Fundamentalism,” as these too have been debated among historians;
transformations of “spirituality” or certain kinds of practice, intersecting
with the emergence of a consumer culture; and, much more briefly, the
history of the Puritan movement as it has been recently debated and
rethought.
Two conclusions emerge from this review of debates about Christianity
in America, past and present. The first concerns the “decline” of what are
known as “mainstream” Protestant denominations or theologies. It is
certain that the influence and size of these denominations is not what it
used to be, but their decline has not necessarily made the United States less
“Christian” –– merely, Christian in unexpected or novel ways, like those
associated with Pentecostalism or spiritual “seeking.” The second
conclusion is that a major question like the meaning of church and state in
the United States is being answered quite differently depending on oneʼs
theological or political affiliation; i.e., all attempts to settle, once and for all,
the meaning of church and state (as though the Constitution did this for
us) are vain, because debate arises out of different expectations for what
religion should be doing, politically.},
 pages = {53--70},
 title = {The Present and the Past in the Religious History of the United States},
 year = {2011}
}