originally published 5/1/2002

Historian Mark Noll describes the conditions in America that shaped how the Church settled and developed here. In a conversation about his book The Old Religion in a New World: the History of North American Christianity (Eerdmans, 2002) Noll compares the Church’s presence in Europe to its presence in America. He notes that while many Americans attend church on a weekly basis, Christianity does not influence the institutions of society as it has in Europe. This odd imbalance can be explained in part by the size and diversity of America. Noll explains how those characteristics, and others, influence the imbalance.

16 minutes

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