Roll Over, Martin Luther

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Although plausible, why does this sound a bit like rationalization? Because for centuries Protestantism's huge numbers had significant consequences: it bred most of America's founders and elite, and served as a template for its civil institutions and cultural assumptions. Huntington, a cheerleader, has credited it with our "core culture" of "individualism, the work ethic, and moralism." Protestant tropes of human perfectibility and the city on the hill continue to echo through political rhetoric. Comments Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: "the mainline always thought, we are America. What's The Big Deal?"

--IF THAT'S THE CASE, SHOULD EVEN NON-PROTESTANTS MOURN ITS DECLINE? Not necessarily. By now, Protestantism's main nontheological message of radical individualism (or, as Berkeley sociologist Robert Bellah skeptically lampoons it, "You can be anything you want to be ... and if you don't make it, you have no one to blame but yourself") is deeply encoded in our national self-understanding — and even upon other religions, once they have spent a few generations here. "Catholics for choice?" Snorts John Fonte, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. "That's Protestantism." Not quite, but it is proof that whatever its institutional trend, Protestantism's influence will live on.