Today, American believers attend churches in 25 states, according to Mr. Martins.
Overall, "can Christianity be saved?" is a question that American believers of every political and theological persuasion should be wrestling with today.
In the 19th century, American believers claimed Tom Paine had died "howling and terrified", recanting his assaults on organised religion and the reliability of the Bible.
Formerly a religion reporter for The New York Times and now an associate professor of religion and the media at Syracuse University, Niebuhr here gathers tales of interfaith dialogue and good will; he estimates they are representative of the practices of thousands of American believers.
But constructive orthodox theology was the major loser when American believers allowed bullets instead of hermeneutical self-consciousness to determine what the Bible said about slavery.
It may be a silly question to some, though not to millions of American believers who invest a lot of faith and hope in their sports teams, and see it repaid many times over by the regular public testimonies of numerous athletes and coaches.
The question is: how can American believers' big hearts, deep pockets, and desire to help be most effectively focused and integrated with other efforts on the ground.
What better way to address this "crisis" than to include all Americans, believers and nonbelievers alike?
LIKE so many patriotic Americans, believers in the cause of European unity talk reverentially of the "founding fathers": such men as Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, Paul-Henri Spaak and others, who laid the foundations of the modern European Union in the aftermath of the second world war.
Xavier Becerra, U.S. House of Representatives - 31st District (in Congress since 1992) We need to make Americans believers again that we can send a man to the moon.
I cannot tell who we secularists should be trying to copy -- lobbyists, ethnically Jewish Americans, believers in a deity or people who hold to traditional practice without reflecting on ultimate questions.
