The New York Times Book Review - Sam Tanenhaus
…quite possibly the most illuminating text for this election year. Jones has located the heirs to [Arthur] Schlesinger's "Old America," slouching toward a new Bethlehem of despair even as they fight rear-guard battles against "the new realities of American demographics, culture and politics"…Jones has dug through mountains of surveys and polls. The result is what he frankly calls an "obituary" of the nation's shrinking population of white Protestants.
Publishers Weekly
04/11/2016
Providing an obituary of “white Christian America,” a eulogy, and a look at stages of grief over its death, Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute and online columnist for the Atlantic, urges America to come to grips with the fact that it is no longer a nation composed mostly of white Christians. Jones follows the emergence and rise of what he calls white Christian America (WCA), often with some interesting, little-known tidbits, and then examines how that majority has disappeared. His thoughts focus on white men, however, leaving readers to ponder how discontented women play into the declining WCA numbers on top of the increasing numbers of non-white Christians. In addition, Jones never thoroughly considers whether Christians refusing to change their attitudes toward same-sex marriage, for example, might be doing so because of solid belief in the scriptures rather than because they don’t want to join non-whites who support marriage equality. Jones’s assumption that white Christians are having a harder time getting elected because they represent an old way of thinking fails to consider that voters might think those particular politicians are incompetent regardless of their race. The book is full of facts, figures, charts, and illustrations, but even as Jones opines that the death of white Christian America is a good thing, he never fully engages with the source of this transformation. Agent: Roger Freet, Foundry Literary & Media. (July)
Rev. Dr. Joel C. Hunter
As a white pastor who has been active addressing cultural issues for decades, I found this book fascinating, clarifying, and useful. For white Christians who want to serve our nation as a part of our faith, the big story line is not the loss of our centrality in the realms of political power; it’s the welcome opportunities for new partnerships based on shared moral principles. This book also leaves us pondering ways to be part of the sequel.
Eboo Patel
Required reading for anyone who wants to know what the American religious landscape looked like in the past, and hopes for a glimpse of where it’s heading in the future.
E. J. Dionne Jr.
Robert Jones has established himself as one of the country’s most intelligent and fair-minded explorers of the American religious and political minds. So it’s not surprising that The End of White Christian America is meticulous, engagingly written and full of insight. . . . An important achievement that will be discussed not for years but for decades.
Mike McCurry
Robert Jones gives us an impressive, clear-minded account of an America that once was but will be no more. While the new realities may cause some to grieve, citizens from every demographic and faith perspective will applaud this book’s non-polemical approach and its insights for a changing nation that remains spiritual and religious as it finds new expressions for its core beliefs.
The Nation - Joan Walsh
"Provocative.'"
Alan Wolfe
The 2016 election campaign revealed to all and sundry that we live in a new country. Robert Jones has written the best guide I have seen to the America taking shape around us.
Michael Eric Dyson Michael Eric Dyson
Robert Jones’ new book is a brilliant and eloquent epitaph for white Christian America. Jones deftly and insightfully shows how this new moment marked by white Christian America’s demise holds both promise and peril for those concerned about racial justice and the future of race relations in the country. This book is a must read!
R. Marie Griffith
Robert Jones convincingly illumines the waning influence of white Protestantism in America as well as the reactions of those bewildered or angered by this inexorable shift. Fast-paced and keenly discerning, this book does a remarkable job of explaining why our culture and politics are so fraught and why we seem to be entering a whole new era in our history. Truly a must-read for understanding the divided state of our nation today.
Joy-Ann Reid
"A haunting portrait of America as it was, and a window into what it is fast becoming. Anyone hoping to understand how we went from Obama's to Trump's America will benefit from reading this wonderfully written, exceptionally researched book."
Thomas B. Edsall
Robert Jones provides essential insight not only into the politics of 2016, but into the broader cultural, ethnic and religious forces restructuring America in the 21st Century. . . . While everyone else was looking 25 years ahead in anticipation of demographic evolution, Robert P. Jones recognized that this country had already experienced crucial social and political change: that the very definition of ‘white Christian’ was undergoing radical transformation.
Jim Wallis
Jones persuasively articulates how both the fear and the hope of the new America are animating our faith and our politics. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who seeks to understand how we got to where we are in our churches and politics today, and how we might help build the bridge to a new America.
Michael Eric Dyson
Robert Jones’ new book is a brilliant and eloquent epitaph for white Christian America. Jones deftly and insightfully shows how this new moment marked by white Christian America’s demise holds both promise and peril for those concerned about racial justice and the future of race relations in the country. This book is a must read!
Library Journal
05/01/2016
Demographic and cultural shifts over the past few decades have led to a changing America in which the majority of people are not white Christians. Jones (Progressive & Religious), founding CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, examines this new reality and how it developed. Christian here includes both the mainline and Evangelical branches of Protestantism, each of which has increasingly lost political and social influence and power in recent years. Jones's analysis is an insightful combination of history, sociology, religious studies, and political science. Topics explored include same-sex marriage and religious liberty, the end of the GOP's "White Christian Strategy" (an outgrowth of its "Southern Strategy"), and the relationship between white Christian Americans and race. Throughout, Jones remains dispassionate, neither celebrating nor grieving these changes but meticulously documenting his claims with statistics and helpful graphics. He ends hopefully, with ways in which this population might explore different roles in American society. VERDICT This book will be of interest to a wide range of readers across the political spectrum who are interested in politics and religion. [See Prepub Alert, 1/11/16.]—Brian Sullivan, Alfred Univ. Lib., NY
Kirkus Reviews
2016-04-11
A pundit considers the decline of Christian religious influence on American politics and culture.For most of America's history, white Protestantism has been a dominant cultural force, providing what E.J. Dionne calls "the civic and moral glue that held American public life together." A combination of demographic change and the abandonment of churches by younger generations may be bringing this era to an end, creating theological challenges for churches and political and cultural challenges for the nation. Public Religion Research Institute founding CEO Jones (Progressive & Religious: How Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist Leaders are Moving Beyond the Culture Wars and Transforming American Public Life, 2008, etc.) charts the rise and decline of white Protestant churches and their cultural hegemony over the past century. He hits his stride in his description of the two great branches of American Protestantism, the mainline churches and the evangelicals, and their competition for cultural dominance, and in his all-too-brief conclusion, with its thoughtful consideration of how Protestant churches and American society could best adapt to the new dispensation. Unfortunately, a core definitional issue plagues the work. The author at first indistinctly defines the phrase "white Christian America" as "the domain of white Protestants in America"; Irish Catholics, for example, do not count. Further uncertainty persists throughout as Jones uses the term differently according to context, referring variously to a group of people today, a similar group in the past and their cultural norms, and even some evangelicals' social agenda. These constantly shifting meanings confuse readers and are reflected in a failure of topical focus, leading the author to pay excessive attention to well-documented but ultimately tangential discussions of sectarian foot-dragging on such issues as desegregation and gay rights and a purported "white Christian strategy" on the part of some Republican operatives. Finally, the author's thesis is overstated. Though white Protestants may no longer be a demographic majority or a dominant social force, they remain a significant social and political influence. A missed opportunity to explore an important cultural change in the making.
