The paradox of the antebellum denominational model—vigorous activity by individual religious communities (often in direct competition with other groups) and at the same time a sense of shared cooperation in the larger task of maintaining the religious and moral health of the nation—flowed from the very idea of denomination. Denominational organizations, although independent, nonetheless shared some “common denominator” with other religious groups that allowed for compromise. In the antebellum period, this common denominator was evangelical (Protestant) Christianity. By the end of the nineteenth century, the denominational spirit, while alive and well, was transformed by the growing complexity of American society. The large-scale growth of Roman Catholics, Jews, and other religious bodies, who Robert Baird had earlier dismissed as being simply “non-evangelical” bodies, undermined the unifying principle of evangelical Christianity. By the early twentieth century, the category of denomination became refitted with a far broader unifying principle. Denominations (now including Catholics and Jews) were seen as being committed to defending certain general religious and moral values—a “Judeo-Christian ethic”—or the values of Western culture. This trend was captured by the sociologist Will Herberg in Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1955), which depicted each of these historic religious faiths as functioning in a quasidenominational fellowship, united in maintaining the “American way of life.” Some historians have referred to this reconfiguration of denominationalism as the second denominational arrangement.
The victory of denominationalism was not total, however. The period of the second denominational arrangement also saw a growing theological critique of the idea of denominationalism among Protestants themselves. H.RICHARD NIEBUHR in The Social Sources of Denominationalism (1929), condemned existing denominational divisions as reflective of the “moral failure” of the church. For Niebuhr, the panoply of denominations reflected social, racial, ethnic, and economic distinctions rather than any meaningful theological issues. Hence the source of denominationalism was social and not theological. Likewise, the emergence of an ecumenical spirit within Protestantism (usually dated from the international WORLD MIS-SIONARY CONFERENCE OF EDINBURGH of 1910) began to challenge the principle of denominationalism. The twentieth-century ecumenical movement rejected the alliance model of church cooperation favored in the nineteenth century (which assumed the perpetuity of denominational existence and called simply for cooperation between denominations), and lifted up a vision of a church united in faith and order as well as life and work (see ECUMENISM). A true and visible church unity was the goal now, not simply interdenominational cooperation. From this perspective, continuing denominational divisions were seen as a scandal in the Christian life.
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