Cultural Christianity

A recent article announced a shift, some call it vibe, others a mood, that is making Christianity more acceptable or less appealing than it used to be in Aaron Renn's "negative world." This is related to a question of what influence churches have on a society and its culture.  Aaron Renn interviewed several leaders among the effort to take back the mainline Protestant denominations (from a fall that everyone acknowledges but does not necessarily measure).  One of the reasons for looking to these churches instead of the Presbyterian Church in America, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, or the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, is that the mainline denominations have more status than the sideline alternatives, and therefore are more likely to promote Christianity beyond the church to the culture more generally.  The pudcast co-hosts, Korey Maas (Lutheran), Miles Smith (Anglican), and D. G. Hart (Presbyterian) discuss these matters, even with some attention to the church's influence on the Roman empire and much later on American society during the early national period.  In the latter case, Ross Douthat's comments in an interview (read in the recording) about low-church Protestantism's influence on America are yet another aspect of Christianity's cultural influence.