ABSTRACT
During the 1970s and 1980s, scholars rediscovered the impact of religion on American politics. Much attention was focused on the renewed political vigor of evangelical Protestants and their dramatic shift toward the Republican party. But at the same time, leaders in the mainline Protestant churches, once the anchor of the GOP, redoubled their involvement with reform politics and edged toward the Democratic party, joining there many of their historic opponents, such as Catholic liberals and militant secularists. Scholars were quick to note that these events paralleled changes in the size and composition of denominations: the growth of evangelicals, the decline of the mainline, the upward mobility of Catholics, and the expansion of secularism (Hadaway 1978).
