George Marsden, summarizing how certain positive signs of “health” for American Protestants at the end of the nineteenth century tended to obscure the deeper realities of secularization at work in American life:

American Protestants in the late nineteenth century…faced a peculiar situation. Externally, they were successful. One could see that from the great stone edifices that were gracing the street corners of cities and towns. Internally, also, they could point to some real spiritual health. Millions of men, women, and young people were profiting from their ministry, growing spiritually, and dedicating their lives toward serving God and their fellows. Enthusiasm for foreign missions, for instance, had never been higher, and the motives for those who made arduous journeys to foreign lands were often self-sacrificial. Many others served their neighbors in quiet ways that were never recorded. And while in many public areas the impact of Protestant Christianity was receding, in countless private ways—especially in family life and the teaching of virtue and responsibility—the influences were strong and positive.

Nonetheless the success was deceptive. Behind it…lurked problems of immense magnitude: formidable intellectual challenges were eroding faith in the Bible, and massive migration to cities and immigration of non-Protestant people produced a secularism that removed much of the nation’s life from effective religious influence. The problems were huge, perhaps in human terms insurmountable. Yet the success itself had a tendency to obscure the dimensions of the crises. It also sometimes had the effect of inviting superficial solutions, such as working to preserve Protestant respectability but at the expense of a prophetic Protestant message that would challenge, rather than simply confirm, the value systems that were coming to control American life.

It amazes me how seamlessly Marsden’s analysis can be extended—with very little modification—to the present-day. The factors he mentions continue to be decisive contributors to this process: urbanization, higher education, science, economic life, and politics. And similar to that day, Protestants today can point to some “encouraging trends” to avoid reckoning with how thoroughly secular American culture has become, church attendance and all the rest notwithstanding. This is why James Davison Hunter says “our contemporary culture is a culture of nihilism without nihilists.” He continues,

Most Americans still believe in God, for example, even in 2024. Yet our public culture is overwhelmingly and insistently secular in character. The same holds true for nihilism. Despite the intentions or motivations of individual actors, and despite the idealistic mantras our politicians and pundits chant to their children (and themselves) before they go to bed, nihilism is the operative reality of contemporary public life.

It would seem that the roots of our nihilistic culture run much deeper than many of us might realize (or care to admit). Further, to acknowledge this is not to deny the pervasive influence of Protestant Christianity on American culture, but rather to recognize the complex relationship that has existed between these forces for quite some time.