Evidence

I always tell my classes at the start of the semester how, when I went to off to college, I thought I was going to go to law school and become a lawyer.  That didn't happen, for a variety of reasons -- the waning of the influence of "Law and Order" in my life; the realization that I really did love (and wanted to make it my vocation) History; and power of professors in the Indiana University History Department to reshape my thinking.  That being said, I did marry into a legal family (my father-in-law and wife are both members of the bar) and my brother also ended up in law school.  I've done legal history as well, and so the law is never far from me, nor are its precepts.  One of the foundations is the importance of evidence when you make a case, and tonight I came up on further evidence that maybe, just maybe, I was on to something in The Mainline.

Readers will recall that one of the arguments I made in the final chapter was that we needed to think (in order to save the term) of a new make up for the Mainline of the twenty-first century.  I included in that list of denominations or groups Pentecostal Christians (most importantly, the Assemblies of God).    In a recent article for World Magazine, Thomas Kidd (who was kind enough to provide the blurb for the back of my book, in an effort at full disclosure -- another legal rule) makes the argument that Pentecostals (highlighting the Assemblies) are indeed bucking the trend when it comes to membership growth and are a force to be reckoned with on the religious scene of today.  You can read the whole article here.

It isn't, of course, the final verdict in such discussions about the role/importance of denominations in telling American religious history, but it is a pretty good bit of evidence that maybe, just maybe, not every story about denominations has to be about decline.