Ross is right about the vibrancy of evangelicalism. But a distinction needs to be made. The strongest currents of Protestantism in the US are Wesleyan, not Calvinist, Pentecostal rather than Presbyterian. When intellectual Protestants wax triumphant about an “evangelical century,” they are celebrating the success of a form of Christianity that differs in significant ways from their own. I was raised in a non-denominational evangelical church. When I became “young, restless, and Reformed,” my parents were alarmed. They asked the pastor how to handle my evident defection from the faith. Whatever I believed, they thought, it wasn’t true Christianity. Intellectual Protestants—the kind who attend Anglican churches or imbibe high-proof Calvinist texts—represent traditions of belief that have helped shape this country. But in terms of sociology and doctrine, they are alienated from the most vigorous contemporary expressions of American Christianity.

Metropolitan Methodist Church, C Street, Washington, D.C, 1924. Demolished in 1936.