The post-Civil War era, in Allitt’s framework, sees the rise of a new challenge: . The Scopes Trial of 1925 is a set piece here, representing the clash between agrarian fundamentalism and cosmopolitan modernism. But Allitt resists the urge to paint this as a war between science and religion. Instead, he shows it as a war within religion. Modernists like Harry Emerson Fosdick sought to reconcile faith with Darwin and higher biblical criticism, arguing that Christianity was about ethics and social progress. Fundamentalists retrenched, creating a parallel culture of Bible colleges and radio ministries. This schism created the political geography we recognize today—the "Bible Belt" versus the "unchurched" coasts.
Finally, Allitt brings us to the late 20th century, where the narrative arcs toward the current "nones"—the 30% of Americans who claim no religious affiliation. He posits that this is not necessarily a decline in spirituality but a rejection of institutional authority. The heirs of the Puritans are not necessarily the Presbyterians, but the self-help gurus and the New Age movement. The Moral Majority of Jerry Falwell, the course suggests, was a last gasp of Christendom, a political mobilization that succeeded in the short term but may have accelerated secularization by yoking the gospel so tightly to partisanship. TTC - Prof. Patrick N Allitt - American Religious History
This democratization of grace is the key to understanding the American Revolution. Allitt carefully dismantles the myth of a purely Enlightenment founding. While Jefferson and Franklin were deists, the rank-and-file patriot was far more likely to see the struggle against Britain as a latter-day Exodus. Preachers like Isaac Backus argued that if the soul could not be coerced by a state church, then neither should the colonist’s property be taxed without consent. The Baptist fight for religious liberty in Virginia was the dry run for the First Amendment. Thus, the "wall of separation" was not a weapon against religion, but a mechanism to ensure a free market of faiths, where evangelical energy could burn without the wet blanket of state control. The post-Civil War era, in Allitt’s framework, sees