Ryan Burge

But if you ask them like in private, they'll tell you, oh, we don't do gay weddings.

So they're not going to be as strident because they want to grow.

And so a lot of them are sort of, you know, the sermons they give are like three ways to be a better father.

two ways to be a better Christian or church member or whatever.

It's sort of Christianity light, but I mean, listen, at the end of the day, the proof's in the pudding, right?

They're the only ones that have shown growth in this era of secularization.

So what they're doing has to work at some level.

I think that what is the common thread that runs through religious growth, not just in America, but across the world is Pentecostalism, what we call charismatic worship, which is what a lot of people like see when they think of non-denominational is the drums, the guitars, the raised hands, the long worship sets.

And so like this emotionalism, I think is actually a predominant factor.

And this is where the mainline loses, by the way, because I don't know if you've been a mainline.

There's no emotion.

In the 1960s, if you went to a church where people raised their hands and like rolled in the aisles or had these big emotional responses, people would look at you like you're an odd person.

And now millions of people are engaging in that worship.

It's been very normalized, I think, in modern America.

And I think the downside of this is it leads to a Christianity that's really all heart and no head.

You know, I think the main line, the problem with the main line has always been it's too much head and too little heart.

You got to have both in equal measure.

And I don't know.

There's no tradition, by the way, that does a good job of sort of targeting maybe the Catholic Church, Ross, to play a little.

But I mean, look at the Trump administration.