The Untapped Potential of Organized Mainline American Protestantism

Five years ago, in the wake of COVID's disruptions, Rev. Sara Spohr's Lutheran church in Minneapolis formed a space-sharing cooperative with two other congregations, one Catholic and one Congregational. "There was an adjustment period...It was like moving in with roommates," she recalled. 

But over time the three churches built trust from their shared values. With their joint contributions, they created a large communal space. When ICE invaded their city this year, that space became a valuable resource for the entire neighborhood.

"We opened up for people who weren't able to go to the larger protests," she said. The bitter cold and other logistics were prohibitive particularly for the elderly and families with small children. "People came and made signs together, or just to be together." They have raised thousands of dollars hosting bake sales for those in the neighborhood who lost income during the ICE raids and need help paying their rent.

Rev. Lori Walke's Congregational church in Oklahoma City has been a centerpiece of progressive organizing in this reddest of red states for decades. When she heard that two immigrant advocacy groups planned to run ICE response training sessions in a bar that held only 50 people, she reached out and offered her church's sanctuary. Three-hundred and fifty people ended up coming.

When ICE came to Charlotte, North Carolina, they entered territory already well organized by progressive Christians, thanks to Black mainline pastor William Barber II, whose Moral Mondays campaign in 2013 dealt a blow to state Republicans' budget agenda. Joel Simpson, the pastor of a Methodist Church in a small town outside Charlotte who has long been active in Barber's movement, had established connections with immigrant advocacy groups before ICE came to town. He and other clergy helped organize ICE response trainings in churches around the area. When I spoke to him in November, they had trained over 2,500 people, most of them probably not affiliated with any church. 

"[Customs and Border Protection or CBP] called the operation Charlotte's Web. But they must not remember how that story ends," he said with a smile. "We're building our own subversive web of resistance." CBP's operation in Charlotte lasted only a week, which was reportedly as planned, but the well-organized pushback from the community may have played a role in that decision.

These are just a few snapshots of the ways predominantly white mainline Protestant churches—"mainline" describes older, more theologically liberal denominations—have become nodes in a larger web of grassroots organizing over the last year, particularly around the issue of immigration, demonstrating the potential of faith-based mobilization among this demographic. 

This isn't a new phenomenon; progressive organizing amongst more theologically liberal white Christians dates back to the Social Gospel movement at the turn of the 20th century. The Civil Rights Movement—led by Black churches of various types that continue to be a mainstay of progressive politics—included many white mainline clergy (less so their congregants). More recently, faith-based activism and outreach to white mainline Christians has had a significant impact, helping to propel Barack Obama to victory and pass his signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act, according to author Jack Jenkins. 

These efforts have waxed and waned rather than coalesce into anything approximating white evangelicals' political influence, in part due to inherent features of white liberal Christianity itself. But while the white "Christian Left" alone is unlikely to rescue American democracy, its leadership, organizational networks, physical spaces, and congregants are all valuable, established resources for those efforts, and its members' more diverse, fluid politics give Democrats room to grow their support. 

In addition, the bright moral lines of the Trump era may be helping these more "quiet" white Christians find renewed purpose and identity. 

Beyond the numbers

The dominant narrative of white mainline Protestantism is one of decline. These Christians currently account for 11% of American adults, down from 18% in 2007, according to Pew Research (PRRI puts them at 13%, roughly equal to the number of white evangelicals). The decline has been particularly steep among younger Americans; the average age for a white mainline Protestant is 56. Sociologist Ryan Burge warns that if current trends persist, these churches are standing on the edge of a demographic cliff that at the very least will have major financial consequences.

These trends are true of religion in America across the board, particularly among white Christians. The largest white evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, has suffered 18 straight years of decline. The average age of a white evangelical is 54. While all groups of white Christians have lost members in this century, the decline over the last decade has actually been sharpest for white evangelicals, according to 2023 data from PRRI. 

Judging by current trends, the future isn't bright for organized American Christianity of any kind. But for now, white mainline Protestants continue to have untapped potential for progressive politics. An older membership pool isn't great for mainline prospects, but as an electoral prize, it's significant. Older white Americans vote at far higher rates than any other group. That's especially true for women, who account for 59% of mainline white Protestants. Mainline white Protestants are also more educated and affluent than other American Christians, which presents additional political advantages. 

In addition, mainliners are a fairly "swingy" constituency, which can cut both ways, but offers Democrats some headroom. While clergy and those who regularly attend services skew left/Democrat or independent, according to PRRI data, the broader membership is more evenly split between self-described Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. And while more than half of self-described white mainline Protestants voted for Donald Trump in the last three elections, support for him has fallen below 50% in a February 2026 survey by PRRI, while white evangelicals' overwhelming support for Trump has remained largely steady.

Mainline churches also retain their buildings, and by extension their presence, in communities all across the country. There are roughly 50-60,000 congregations nationwide, based on each denomination's reported data, most of them small and evenly dispersed. In addition, they also have more formal leadership and organizational structures than evangelicals, who are more likely to attend non-denominational churches or those in denominations with flatter/more congregational structures. 

Pastor Simpson cited the denominational network of churches and people as an asset for recent organizing in North Carolina. "The United Methodist Church is so far spread, and our easiest network is us, because we know each other," he said. He told me clergy networks also shared information from CBP's Chicago operation with North Carolina's clergy when that operation was announced. 

Other pastors mentioned previously established messaging groups with other clergy in their denominations and their participation in denominational, inter-denominational, and interfaith associations—such as the interfaith ISAIAH network in Minnesota and VOICE, an network of congregations, nonprofits, and schools in Oklahoma—as resources they have drawn on in their activism. 

As these examples illustrate, mainliners' greater doctrinal flexibility allows for more ecumenical and inter-faith cooperation. According to Jack Jenkins, coordination of efforts across congregations, denominations, and faiths has been a major feature of the "Religious Left" in the last few decades in particular. As religiosity declines across the board in America, this coalescence will become increasingly important.

What mainliners don't have, compared to white evangelicals, is a rigid theology that demands conformity and fuels a tribal identity. Morally speaking, as a former evangelical-now-mainline Christian, I count this to their enormous credit. But politically, I can see how it presents an obstacle to their mobilization and influence. 

"Our tradition says you get to be your own person"

Unlike evangelicalism, white mainline Protestantism does not have the hallmarks of a "tribe," and being a white mainline Christian is not an identity the way being an evangelical is. There are foundational theological differences between the two groups, stemming from their starkly differing views of scripture, that largely account for this.

That divide began opening up in the late 19th century with the advent of biblical Higher Criticism and more formal theological education and the challenge presented by Darwinism and other scientific developments. Over the course of the 20th century, white American Protestantism became increasingly delineated between theological liberalism, based on a biblical exegesis that accounted for historical and scientific insight, and fundamentalism, which claimed to interpret the Bible literally, as the "inerrant" word of God. In other words, liberals' theology adapted to new information; fundamentalist theology, the forebear of white evangelicalism, met change with entrenchment.

This foundational difference—so marked that I grew up in white evangelicalism believing that mainline Protestants weren't truly Christians—has manifested in how the two groups relate to the broader culture and function internally. 

The white evangelical posture toward secular society is one of embattlement and opposition, even in contexts where evangelicalism is the dominant culture. Evangelicals' persecution complex has fostered a group cohesion and strong identity that mainline Protestants, with their more flexible and adaptable theology and greater compatibility with secularism, don't have.

Internally, too, white mainline Protestants don't prize certainty or enforce conformity the way white evangelicals do. Doctrinal tests and adherence are more loose, church discipline is uncommon, and fear of judgment, both earthly and eternal, is not a major motivation. Not surprisingly, church attendance is less regular among mainliners. 

White evangelicals, on the other hand, rigorously enforce strict doctrinal tests and police the behavior and participation of members to a greater degree. They claim absolute certainty about their exclusive rightness on a range of beliefs (that have increasingly encompassed political positions) and maintain that those who disagree with them are hell-bound. While their organizational structures less formal and their vision of faith is more individualistic, the culture of white evangelicalism, built on rigid scriptural interpretation and doctrine, is highly authoritarian. 

Evangelicals' combination of moral certainty, hostility to the larger culture, and what Rev. Walke, who grew up evangelical, calls their "superpower of conformity" has invigorated their political activism. Their cultural and numerical decline, including amongst their own children, has only underscored the urgency of attaining political power as a way to bolster their cultural influence. 

Mainliners, on the other hand, view their declining numbers with, well, faith, that God is sovereign and his kingdom coming doesn't require their own success. And despite a long history of contributing to the blending of church and state, these days mainliners are less likely than white evangelicals to believe that America needs to be a Christian nation. Indeed, many are rather squeamish about even the idea of a "Christian Left," based on Jack Jenkins's work.  

Pastor Jenn Murdoch of Lynnewood United Methodist Church in Pleasanton, California— a mainline congregation that includes a number of former evangelicals—thinks the divergence of white mainline and evangelical Christians runs even deeper. 

“Political and religious ideologies map to how people function cognitively. There are people who think in a very black and white way. And I don’t think that people who are drawn to the mainline tradition think like that," she told me in an interview last year. “Our tradition says you get to be your own person. In some ways, it’s more demanding because you have to think for yourself,” she explains. “But it also means it doesn’t require the same level of group commitment.”

Whereas white evangelicals' deeply tribal culture has become the Republican Party's "superpower"—and I would argue one of the engines driving it towards greater authoritarianism—the less strident, more nuanced, less self-assured, and more independent-thinking bent of white mainline Protestants mirrors the political left's own ambivalence and unruliness. Like cats, mainline Protestants are hard to herd because they just aren't pack animals. 

But Donald Trump might yet prove to be an accomplished cat herder. 

The next Reformation?

Pastor Melissa Pullman describes her Lutheran congregation in downtown Minneapolis as a diverse spectrum of people, from the church's many unhoused neighbors to the city's well-heeled "establishment" Lutherans, some of whom struggle to understand the experiences of society's marginalized and are politically conservative. "We're a purple congregation," she says, "On the lavender end." 

I asked her how she navigates these divides. "I am constantly inviting all of my people to be in relationship. If you want to tell me 'immigrants this and immigrants that,' or 'trans people this,' I'm gonna introduce you to [someone in that community]," she explains. "But I also just stay really close to the gospel." 

But after ICE's recent assault on the city, her congregants need less convincing. One of the church's custodians was taken by ICE on church property as he arrived for services. He's still in custody. "They all know someone who was taken," she says somberly.

Doug Pagitt, a pastor and national political organizer based in Minneapolis, has been working within mainline Protestantism for the past 30 years and says something feels different now. "There was always this hesitation," he says of the mainline posture of the past, "I can't count the number of times I heard people repeat that quote, 'Proclaim your faith always, when necessary, use words.'" 

He attributes some of that modesty to these Christians' desire to differentiate their faith from the loud, politicized version of white evangelicals. "But now it's like, Hey, our faith actually has something to contribute." He says he hears the same message from the secular progressive groups with which he interfaces, who often ask him to bring clergy to their events for the additional moral authority their presence conveys. 

He also sees more energy these days from the grassroots level, with individual clergy and congregations taking action without "running it up the chain." He cites as an example the large, well-publicized prayer vigil at the Minneapolis airport in January by clergy from around the country, which he says was spearheaded by an individual pastor who worked within her established networks.

Mainliners are worrying less than before about political speech and association, too. While the ties between secular political and mainline Christian networks have long been robust at the leadership and organizational level, more congregants may be getting involved, based on anecdotal observation. Churches like Lynnewood in California and my own Methodist church in Virginia have activist committees that share information on protests, immigrant assistance training, Singing Resistance gatherings, and other opportunities to engage politically together. Several of my fellow congregants have mentioned to me that they have gone to a protest or volunteered for a campaign for the first time in the last year (that's true of myself, too). 

From my own point of view, the motivating difference for political activism now as opposed to in the past is the vivid moral drama playing out in the realms of both politics and religion. Biblical themes like imperial oppression, the abuse of faith by "wolves in sheep's clothing," caring for the poor and the stranger, and loving one's neighbor are clearly visible in the daily onslaught of news. 

That drama is cutting through what Doug Pagitt calls "the progressive curse" of seeing the world in shades of grey and shying away from bold moral claims. "There are times you need to say, This is abhorrently wrong...and I think that's happening now," he says. Or, as best-selling mainline Christian author Diana Butler Bass has often said, "The Bible is preaching itself." 

Many mainliners can see the importance of articulating an alternative white Christian narrative to the Christian nationalism of the political right, not just for the sake of their faith, but for the sake of democracy itself. For this reason, and not out of a desire to elevate a left-wing version of Ted Cruz or Marjorie Taylor Greene, white mainliners have generally greeted vocally Christian Democrats like James Talarico with measured excitement. 

"We do not want to [fuse] the Democratic Party and progressive Christianity," Rev. Walke says, and she specifically discusses with her congregation how to guard against this. But she thinks it's "essential" that a better form of Christianity be communicated as relentlessly as Christian nationalism has been. "I can't tell you how many evangelical friends I have who don't like what's going on," she says. "But they think there's no other version of Christianity....Evangelicals purposely paint the mainline as not Christian. It makes the bar to leave much higher if there's nowhere else to go." 

We will find out in the next few years whether Democrats can successfully mobilize whatever white mainline Protestant political awakening may exist to push back the MAGA tide, but it's safe to say there is ample potential and significant energy there. 

A deeper, harder question is how the Trump years will change American Christianity as a whole and what role mainline churches might play in that. For many Americans of all faiths, including many Christians, white evangelicalism—the dominant strain of American Christianity for several decades now—has been fully discredited by its association with Trump. 

God only knows what happens in the wake of its moral collapse. For the sake of American democracy, we should all hope a version of Christianity that is more compatible with a secularizing, pluralistic society can take its place. As Jonathan Rauch wrote in his book Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy, "In American civic life, Christianity is a load-bearing wall. When it buckles, all the institutions around it come under stress."

The clergy with whom I spoke don't expect a revival of mainline numbers. But they do hope to become part of a larger revival of community, presence, and neighborliness that benefits all, regardless of beliefs or religious participation. 

"I constantly remind myself—the church originally was very tiny," says Pastor Simpson. "And it's always been at its best when it is not the major authority and major power."

"People are longing for community. And, yeah, I think we're doing things that make people want to be a part of that community," says Rev. Spohr. 

She continues, "They say reformations happen every 500 years, right? It's about that time." 

Featured image is Central Lutheran Church in downtown Minneapolis, by Farragutful