Ryan P. Burge was pastor of an American Baptist church in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, for 17 years before his church closed for good in 2024. Since then he has become an influential political scientist, teaching at Washington University, while writing books about what happened to his church and many others like it. He’s been on “60 Minutes” and in The New York Times. His latest book, The Vanishing Church: How Polarization is Reshaping American Faith, was the subject of a Religion News Service webinar this week. He told his online audience that until about 30 years ago there were about as many Democrats as Republicans in mainline Protestant churches. “Church was a place to be in contact with people who are different from you,” he said. But in the last election, he said, 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. Many on the other political side want a politically diverse church, insisting “We’re not bad people.” Burge says church people, whether Democrat or Republican, have always been middle-of-the-road moderates, but “That’s not in vogue right now.” In his talk, Burge was much stronger on analysis than on solutions. Still, he has his finger on a major cultural shift in religion and politics. He says, bluntly, “Mainline Protestant Christianity is headed for extinction.” – Fletcher Farrar, editor
This article appears in January 22 – 26, 2026.
