There will always be religious voices on the political and theological left of course. But its main institutions are all in sharp decline and many are fading away, such that American religion is dominated by voices on the right.
The latest near demise is Faith and Public Life, which is reducing its staff from 19 to two, with a budget that’s quickly declined from $6 million to $223,802. Founded in 2006 by a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister to advocate for progressive causes, it was closely aligned with Mainline Protestantism, as has been most of the Religious Left. As Mainline Protestantism recedes, so too does the institutional Religious Left. The same article in Sojourners, a Religious Left outlet, also admitted that Sojourners, which was founded in the 1970s by activist Jim Wallis, is itself cutting back.
It’s hard to name a single Religious Left institution today that retains major influence in America. Of course, some MAGA evangelicals call non-MAGA religious evangelicals “Religious Left,” since they themselves have no memory or awareness of the real Religious Left. More on that later.
The Religious Left, unlike the modern Religious Right, emerged from the institutional church, mostly Mainline Protestantism but also including some leftwing Roman Catholic orders that also have lost influence. The Mainline Protestant denominations, chiefly the United Methodist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, American Baptist Church and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), including their predecessor bodies, institutionally embraced progressive politics and theology in the early 20th century. They further radicalized in the 1960s, which is when their 60-year membership decline began. Although the church membership remained more conservative, if passive, the prelates, and agencies became the Religious Left. Most of these denominations had and still have, although highly diminished, lobby offices on Capitol Hill. Their missions boards, publishing houses, and other national ministries, once but no longer influential, also aligned this way.
Mainline Protestantism formed the core of the National Council of Churches (NCC), a once formidable alliance representing, at least theoretically, tens of millions of American church members. It was the chief institutional voice for the Religious Left. The NCC starting in the 1940s, and preceded by the old Federal Council of Churches early in the 20th century, plausibly claimed to speak for the pillars of American religion. Up until twenty or so years ago, NCC presidents met with U.S. presidents and other potentates, made headlines, and the NCC was esteemed a serious political and cultural force. The NCC, once with hundreds of employees at its New York headquarters, now has only several employees in DC and is rarely cited.
There is also the World Council of Churches, based in Switzerland, but which long had a New York office, and which also was an organ of the Religious Left. In the 1960s and 1970s it funded, with church dollars, guerrilla groups, some of them Marxist, fighting to overthrow what was left of European colonialism in Africa. It was heavily influenced by Liberation Theology and often espoused Marxist themes when critiquing the United States and the West while rarely if ever addressing human rights concerns in the Soviet Union or under leftist regimes. Mainline Protestantism formed the core of its U.S. membership. But with Mainline decline, the WCC is also barely heard from in U.S. Christianity, although its international work continues.
The NCC was also enmeshed in Liberation Theology, fawned over repressive Marxist regimes, and even after the Cold War still was friendly to Fidel Castro, hosting him in New York. A former NCC president even visited him late in life in 2015 in Havana. Domestically, the NCC, like the Mainline Protestant lobby offices, also advocated conventional and sometimes radically progressive stances. It favored larger welfare and entitlement programs, more federal regulation, looser law enforcement, opposed U.S. military spending, and portrayed the U.S. as intrinsically racist, for which no reparation could fully compensate. Mainline prelates and agencies, if not the NCC directly (restrained by black denominations and Eastern Orthodox churches) advocated for abortion rights and sexual liberalism starting in the 1970s.
This old Religious Left had emerged from theological modernism early in the 20th century, which rejected the supernatural, like Christ’s deity, resurrection, and miracles, and replaced it with an ethical Christianity focused on building God’s Kingdom through social and political action. This form of Christianity was universalist, heedless of personal salvation, and so did not prioritize evangelism. Its membership implosion was inevitable. Theological modernism opened windows for exotic spiritualities, such as radical feminist theology in the early 1990s, which strove to replace the patriarchal deity with ancient goddesses like Astarte and Isis, alongside unusual rites and rituals. This movement culminated in the 1993 Reimagining Conference, endorsed by nearly all Mainline Protestant denominations, and which replaced the traditional eucharist with an eroticized communion of milk and honey amid chants of “Sophia, Sophia…”
These strange spiritual avenues, which often got national publicity, further accelerated Mainline Protestantism’s demise. In the early 1980s, IRD focused publicity on Mainline Protestantism’s support, especially through the NCC and WCC, for violent Marxist revolutionary movements, which was the focus of a 1983 “Sixty Minutes” expose called “The Gospel According to Whom?” Arguably Mainline Protestantism never recovered from their piece, watched by tens of millions.
Theological modernism, incarnated by Mainline clerics like the late Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, who speculated the Virgin Mary was a prostitute impregnated by a Roman soldier, has largely been replaced by postmodernism, which is friendlier to creedal Christianity, including its miracles. The Social Gospel, with its confidence about building God’s Kingdom through good works, mostly political and social, has also faded. The Religious Left lost its spiritual, political, and institutional pillars. It exists today through largely unheeded voices who emerge at places like Union Seminary in New York City.
There was also an Evangelical Left, including groups like Evangelicals for Social Action and Sojourners, which tried to stay orthodox while touting progressive politics, but which also has faded, liberalizing on sexuality and unable to stay meaningfully evangelical. Many progressive evangelicals simply became “exvangelicals” and left institutional Christianity altogether. The Evangelical Left seemed poised to replace the old Religious Left but had even less endurance.
Yesterday I tweeted that the Religious Left barely exists anymore. A few people responded that yes it does, through the United Methodist Church! But Mainline Protestant institutions little matter, not even to their members. The United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, once DC’s Religious Left beehive, is now largely empty and silent, looking for new tenants.
So it was amusing and revealing when one response to my tweet about the Religious Left’s demise came from a zealous Southern Baptist and self-identified “Christian Nationalist” activist who insisted: “The Religious Left is still powerful and well-funded. Just look at David French, Russell Moore, The After Party, Christianity Today, etc…” For him, the Religious Left is non-MAGA evangelicals. The retreat of the Religious Left is so pervasive that it’s no longer recalled and even confused with intra-evangelical debates.
The Religious Left only functioned as a subsidiary of mostly Mainline Protestantism, without which it has few other resources or constituencies. But fallen humanity is endlessly creative and will create, and is already creating, new dangerous religious pathways against which we should always be on guard, even within, especially within, ourselves.
Comment by Thomas on September 9, 2025 at 8:17 pm
I used to like Russell Moore but unfortunately he went too much for the center in recent years. Its perplexing how come “Christianity Today” claim to be orthodox on sexuality and the sanctity of human life, from conception to natural death, and still give a Christmas cover to rock singer Bono, a notorious heretic and pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality activist. Its not only because you say nice things about Jesus that you become a real Christian, you have to follow Christianity in your life. Its also perplexing how can Moore do an article putting together John Lewis, an apostate and supporter of late-term abortions, who had long reject the pacifist and pro-life stance of most supporters of the Civil Rights Movement, and the great Anglican theologian J. I. Packer in the same article. I understand charges of leftism aimed at Moore, but I think most likely he has gone moral relativist.
Comment by Gary Bebop on September 10, 2025 at 11:14 am
Great writeup, Mark! Many of us are frustrated with the chameleon-like modern evangelicals who are always adjusting their bonnets to appear more respectable to those who occupy the pinnacles of progressive influence. I wish these modern evangelicals would come to their senses and get back to preaching Christ without the codes and colors of ideological contamination.
Comment by Lloyd W. Condra on September 10, 2025 at 11:42 am
Sadly, only two issues define the line of demarcation between religious right and religious left: abortion and gay rights.
Comment by Tim Mc on September 10, 2025 at 1:06 pm
Not two issues, just one. Do you believe the Bible was God inspired or not? Make your choice and then live accordingly.
Everyone is a sinner in need of a savior. You either believe that or you don’t.
As for me and my house we shall serve the Lord.
Comment by Qohelet on September 10, 2025 at 1:29 pm
The author fails to mention the main difference between the Christian Left and the Christian Right : the left is still Christian and the right appears to be worshiping a golden calf.
Of course we’re distressed in mainline churches about our membership declines. But we still open up the clothing closet every Friday and the soup kitchen when we can. We march for the rights of foreigners, feeding the hungry, and caring for the sick. We visit the prisoners and minister to them.
It’s a very DC centric viewpoint that how effective an institution is depends on the number of lobbyists. What’s the point of lobbying a “Christian” like Mike Johnson? He’ll attend a prayer breakfast at 9 and cut Medicaid at 11.
The confusion over whether Russell Moore is a liberal or not kind of highlights the point. He’s a Christian. He’s been very public that at the end of his time in the SBC he’d give sermons on the Sermon on the Mount and he’d get yelled at for reciting leftwing propaganda. For a lot of right-wing Christians at the moment, Jesus’s literal words are repugnant. Does that make him a leftie? No, it makes him a Christian, and that the Christian right can’t tell basic Christianity from what they call woke politics tells you all you need to know about the Christian right.
Comment by Wilson R. on September 10, 2025 at 1:35 pm
Mark Tooley writes: “…fallen humanity is endlessly creative and will create, and is already creating, new dangerous religious pathways against which we should always be on guard, even within, especially within, ourselves.”
True enough. The New Testament epistles are full of warnings about false teachers. “Beware of the dogs,” writes Paul.
But Mr. Tooley never seems to consider the possibility that “mainstream Christianity” in America might itself have led people down dangerous religious pathways.
For example, you can make a strong case that mainline Protestantism in the US has been infected over the decades with American materialistic and consumerist culture. It made its peace with a culture that also worships mammon, instead of confronting that culture. Instead of teaching, as Jesus and Judaism did, that faith is practiced communally, within communities (because that sounds communist!), mainline Protestantism often treats the Jesus of personal salvation as a commodity, as if he were a refrigerator or the latest video game (“I got my Jesus, you get your Jesus, and together we’ll celebrate that we have Jesus.”)
Christians of all stripes–mainline, nondenominational, liberal, conservative–always need to hold up a mirror to themselves, lest they find they have the kind of logs in their eyes that Mr. Tooley seems to be ignoring here.
Comment by John Wagner on September 10, 2025 at 2:55 pm
I am relatively conservative theologically. I have friends in both the GMC and the UMC, and I’m still a UMC pastor. Our differences pale in comparison to what our nation and world are going through. I’m reading a book about Gaza, and I recommend it, but the title is almost sufficient to get the message across; “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.” I’ve been over there with liberal, conservative and moderate Christians, both theologically and politically. Everyone who sees this nightmare up close is appalled and wants to do something about it. They are not driven by ideology, but rather the brute fact of a genocide payed for by our tax dollars. I’ve been reaching out to colleagues in all denominations, GMC included, to try to get us to say and do what we always said we would do if we were Christians in 1930s Germany or the 1950s American South. Not much success, I’m afraid. My great advantage is seeing it up close, so my real heroes are those who take my word for it that we MUST oppose this. Same for what’s happening to immigrants. The battle over the direction of the church can wait. This is the time we must work together.
Comment by DRW1 on September 10, 2025 at 3:54 pm
Qohelet, your post has an angry tone to it. Perhaps I’m reading it wrong? I dont know why Christians see a need to identify as “right wing” or “left wing” Christians. They are not identified that way in the Bible, only as Christians. I dont see why we should do anything different in the 21st century. You state “we still open up the clothing closet every Friday and the soup kitchen when we can. We march for the rights of foreigners, feeding the hungry, and caring for the sick. We visit the prisoners and minister to them.” I know plenty of conservative-oriented Christians who do the same. I have no doubt that you know some too, yet you make it sound like only Christians on “the left” do this. Marching for the “rights of foreigners” is too vague a term, but the rest of things you mention are done by Christians of all political persuasions. I am curious though, how do you feel about Christians who march for other’s rights? Like babies in utero for example?
Comment by Thomas on September 10, 2025 at 6:58 pm
The left is still Christian?! This is a joke. I don`t doubt there are still many true and honest Christian leftists in the United States. However I don`t think they will fit anymore in the Democratic Party, judging by the radical anti-Christian stances they have taken recently.
Comment by samuel on September 10, 2025 at 7:20 pm
Wonderful article. I am so delighted to learn more details about the decline of the dead / dying churches that have abandoned Christ in favor of modern culture’s flavor of the day. Once these denominations abandon God’s word and disobey His guidance, it is a rational and logical step for them to embrace sin to one degree or another.
The conservative Christian groups in my area have achieved a degree of public recognition for their service to the poor and needy. The largest food distribution orgs in our area are from conservative Christian group. They both preach the gospel and put Jesus’ commands for compassion into action.
Comment by Qohelet on September 11, 2025 at 6:00 am
John Wagner, Amen. A world where Christians work together on urgent common causes would be a much more Christ-like world.
DRW1, am I angry? To be fair, this article and several of the comments are gloating about the demise of my church, so perhaps I’m a little annoyed. But I think my point is hard to debate. The Christian left is William Barber marching for a living wage for poor people and the Christian right is silent as ICE kidnaps people’s grandmothers over a 20 year old bounced check or as JD Vance brags about extrajudicial murder.
As for my opinion on forced pregnancy? It’s complicated. I do think embryos have rights but I also think pregnant women have rights. But given that God put us all on this earth to care for the least of these and not to sit around smugly judging other people, the path forward on this issue should be clear: reduce the number of abortions by fighting the causes: poverty, ignorance, and shame. That means support for women’s healthcare, serious sex ed classes in high school, early childhood childcare, and support for young single parents. If you’re against those things but condemning women for making an impossible choice then you’re just the useless hypocrite we’re warned about in James 2:16
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on September 11, 2025 at 9:32 am
John Wagner,
The Gaza Holocaust is truly one of the most horrific, barbarous, savage acts perpetrated in many, many years. Most of the people in the churches, though, do not “see” it and never will. Many of those who do see it believe it is God-ordained. So there’s no need to look to American churches to do anything to stop the slaughter.
There is such a thing as “winning the battle but losing the war.” Israel may be winning the battle but it is losing the war. Slowly, and largely unnoticed by the Americans, a tectonic geopolitical shift is taking place. The Global Majority is developing its own connections and institutions. The power base of the US and Israel is being bypassed. The world has seen them for what they are and is moving on without them.
Other Gulf states have noticed that, despite the supposed security arrangement the US supposedly has with Qatar, the US stood down and allowed Israeli missiles to strike a Qatar city. They will begin to look elsewhere for their security.
Eventually, the Global Majority will tire of a rogue nation that willy-nilly bombs any sovereign nation it chooses to and is always granted immunity by the US.
Israel is sowing the seeds of its own demise with the Gaza Holocaust.
To quote the old hymn, “Though the cause of evil prosper, yet ‘tis truth alone ‘tis strong.”
Comment by Skipper on September 12, 2025 at 10:33 am
Thank goodness the Mainlines are declining. They have become a bad influence. We do need to question if they are still Christian? The United Methodists approved Same-Sex Marriage in May of 2024, so they no longer uphold Christian morals. Can Christians take such a stance? I don’t think so. Fortunately, all the other Methodist denominations are still on God’s side upholding what the Bible plainly says. The UMC has become the “bad” Methodists, like the USA Presbyterians became the “bad” Presbyterians earlier by approving of Gay Marriage and ministers of God.
Comment by Wilson R. on September 12, 2025 at 10:55 am
Glenn: 100% agree with you about the Israeli government and the loss of moral legitimacy. It pains me to have to recognize it, but they are conducting a genocide—they were doing a less visible and lethal version of it in the West Bank for years before October 7–and evangelicals have largely given them a pass.
I have a sign in my yard that says, “We stand with our Jewish neighbors.” We organized a neighborhood sign campaign after neo-Nazis distributed hate leaflets in our neighborhood, marched in front of the synagogue 4 blocks from my house, and hung swastika banners at the state capitol without any pushback from state leaders. We have lots of Jewish neighbors, and they were scared. We wanted the Nazis to know that, if they come for our neighbors, they have to go through us.
I stand by that sign, but I don’t stand by what Israel is doing (mostly with the support of the Israeli public). By the definition of anti-semitism adopted, under duress, by some leading universities, criticizing the Israeli government and military makes me anti-semitic, my stance on behalf of my neighbors notwithstanding.
Comment by drw1 on September 12, 2025 at 12:01 pm
Qohelet, perhaps you shouldn’t be too annoyed. The true church, the Body of Christ, as defined in the NT, is thriving in many parts of the world. Amen I say to that. Some institutional (man-made) churches, however, are struggling, for various reasons (one reason being that some care more about cultural alignment than Christ-centered alignment). Perhaps such church’s struggles are justifiable since Jesus admonishes us to take the narrow path, not the one approved by the current cultural climate. In any event, “my” church is the Body of Christ, an organism of people across the world who walk in humble submission to Christ. You however continue to frame things as “right” or “left” and apparently dispute that any so-called “right” leaning Christians do any good. Are you so blind as to believe that only Christians of your given political persuasion are valuable to the Body or to the world? You further list a series of causes for abortions and fail to list the key cause: sin. Perhaps women and men who dont want to have babies should not engage in sex, and sex should be kept in the confines of where God wants it, in a marriage. Surely you dont dispute that the Bible makes this clear? your use of a euphemism like “forced pregnancy” shows you are not really serious about God’s opinion on the matter. That is not a Biblical phrase but a political talking point, and a dishonest one at that. Did not Jesus say: “who are my brothers and sisters? Those who do the will of My Father.” Murder is against God’s will, and it is certainly not an act of justice or compassion. I have no objection against speaking out against poverty but let me know what you’re doing to actually alleviate poverty in world, and perhaps I’ll come help. Meantime, your comments on abortion are as I would expect. Murder is actually not very “complicated.” Nor is James’ writing. Perhaps you should consider what he says about the “double-minded,” those who see bad and think it good and see good and think it bad. Seeing abortion as merely an issue of “forced pregnancy” would suggest you’re quite the double minded person, or perhaps just confused. In any event, always willing to discourse further.
Comment by Qohelet on September 12, 2025 at 11:48 pm
It’s interesting you want me to use a Biblical phrase about abortion because you know as well as I do that the Bible is silent on the matter. And again I say to you, working together we could greatly decrease the number of abortions in this country. It doesn’t happen because this is a convenient wedge issue that our politicians use to drive us apart.
You seem very good at identifying sin in other people. But that’s not what Jesus calls us to do: we are to love other people. Men and women sin, it is true. But on this issue, at the end of the day a child is born, and that child is our fellow human. 40% of all births today are out of wedlock and 21% of kids live with just their mother (4% just their father.) If we actually are to be pro life then those children should matter. Do they matter to right wing Christians? I think Big Beautiful Bill tells us all we need to know. Did you miss the part about cutting SNAP benefits? The part about not letting refugees use SNAP? The part that kicked millions off of healthcare? Unlike abortion, the Bible is very clear about our collective responsibility to tend to the basic needs of those around us and as a bonus if we actually did it we might even lower the number of abortions! That’s a lot more pro life than forcing women to deliver babies that society won’t help them with.
Comment by Skipper on September 14, 2025 at 12:25 pm
Would God really punish people, with no chance for an appeal? This is a question and answer on Jeremiah 15:1-4 from”500 Questions and Answers from the Bible.”
“God is a God of mercy and of judgment. Sin always has consequences; every sinful action will have a corresponding judgment of some sort. However, God is always willing to show mercy to His people, regardless of their sin. Even though God repeatedly chastised and punished the nation of Isreal for their sins, bringing down various foreign invaders upon them and having them carted off to Babylon as slaves. He always offered them mercy within the very depths of their judgment. We must also remember that God is slow to wrath. While people are engaged in their sin, God always offers chances for mercy and repentance before He reaches the point where He will bring judgment.”
Comment by DRW1 on September 14, 2025 at 8:11 pm
Qohelet
Oh my friend, the Bible is quite clear, and not silent at all, that murder (the wanton destruction of an innocent life), is forbidden. I don’t see why it is necessary for God to stipulate every form of murder possible. Abortion is the act of ripping apart a baby inside its mother’s womb and sucking its remains out for subsequent disposal into the garbage. This is the wanton destruction of an innocent life; the fact that the mother is compliant in the act does not make it any less murder. You know this to be true. The matter is not “complicated.” You even say later that “the child is our fellow human.” The child has the same DNA and body functions inside the womb as outside.
And you seem to forget what Jesus said to the women caught in adultery: “go and sin no more.” Or that Jesus sought the man out that He had healed at Bethesda and said, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” Jesus cared far more about our spiritual health than our physical health (“don’t labor for the food that spoils, labor for the food that endures;” and “But seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” He cares far more about our spiritual health exactly because He loves us so, and He knows full well that sin leads to spiritual death-an eternal separation from God. Why don’t you care about your fellow human’s spiritual health? You cite stats about single parents; these are all symptoms of the sickness of sin, are they not?
Perhaps you’re more comfortable complaining about political developments and attacking fellow Christians than you are trying to be the true “salt” and “light” in this world. You certainly insist on making this a political issue, discussing legislation passed recently. And you still insist on classifying Christians as “right wing” or “left wing.” You ask questions like, “Do they matter to right wing Christians?” This is a dogmatic question, based on your prejudice against certain Christians, not a theological or moral question. Have you considered that there are Christian pregnancy resource and care centers all over the US? These centers provide all basic needs for young mothers and their children, including their spiritual needs, at no cost. And, they offer alternatives to murder, which apparently causes some people to reject them. Did not Jesus lament at Jerusalem: “Oh Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets, how I would have gathered you….” Why did they kill the prophets my friend? Because the prophet’s message was so unpopular: stop sinning and return to God’s ways. Loving somebody is not embracing their sin. Loving somebody is pointing out that there sin is the path to destruction.
Perhaps you should actually spend some time at one of these pregnancy centers, getting to know some of the volunteers there instead of issuing blanket condemnations of “right wing” Christians. By the way, for someone so down on pointing out sin, you seem perfectly willing to point out the “sins” of your fellow Christians. Perhaps you should consider that.
Comment by Qohelet on September 14, 2025 at 11:03 pm
Lots of words there. Nothing to address my point that forced pregnancy and then a complete washing of hands about whose responsibility the child is is not pro life, Biblical, or economically sensible.
A society that cared about the unborn would take care the born. I see very little evidence of that in the Bible Belt, which leads the nation in teenage pregnancy, maternal mortality, and childhood poverty.
Comment by Salvatore Anthony Luiso on September 15, 2025 at 2:53 pm
Regarding “For him, the Religious Left is non-MAGA evangelicals”: Sad to say, not just for him (William Wolfe), but for others.
In the last few years I’ve even seen people say that French and Moore are not Christians. Whether Wolfe believes that, I don’t know.
Anyway, it’s ludicrous to say that French and Moore aren’t Christians and that they’re part of the Religious Left.
Also: “MAGA evangelical” is an oxymoron.
Comment by Mac Muttfour on September 15, 2025 at 5:46 pm
Progressives want change that at times seem against core beliefs of the United Methodist Church so let’s gather in Saint Louis and scream and shout with all the civility of a “clown” show. Look at some of the pictures, it was disgusting. I don’t like that statement in the BOD so I must be correct, lets change it. My suggestion instead of being unhappy and destroying a denomination, start your own. If you really had Christion Beliefs would that not seem appropriate? Similar to shoplifting. I didn’t earn it but I want it. Would not the sane suggestion be get a job?
Comment by Qohelet on September 15, 2025 at 8:56 pm
That’s not remotely what happened in the UMC Mac. We were a church that was evenly divided on LGBTQ acceptance and then the conservatives got sick of waiting for the delayed general conference so they used the process they had designed to get rid of liberals and left instead.
When general conference finally happened we weren’t evenly divided any more. So now we treat our LGBTQ brothers and sisters like Jesus would have instead of how the Pharisees would have.
Comment by David Gingrich on September 16, 2025 at 8:11 am
Tooley thinks ‘Christianity Today’ is still evangelical???
Comment by drw1 on September 16, 2025 at 10:33 am
Qohelet
There you go again. So its people in the “Bible belt” who are the problem now?
Its not sin, evil or self-centeredness that’s the problem? Its those other “Christians;” you know, the ones on the right wing?
You just cant help yourself can you?
You state: “Lots of words there. Nothing to address my point that forced pregnancy and then a complete washing of hands about whose responsibility the child is is not pro life, Biblical, or economically sensible.”
I directly addressed your euphemism, and I directly addressed how multiple Christian organizations are caring for the unborn and the recently born child+the mother.
Perhaps you should also consider who the real enemy is. Hint: its not those “right wing” Christians.