The latter half of the nineteenth century had endured post-revivalist reform efforts, a grueling Civil War, and the beginnings of urbanization, industrialization, and modernization. As a result, religious individuals felt compelled to place their own moral evaluations on the times. Looking at the social injustices of what came to be known as the "Gilded Age," Protestant clergy and laity observed with chagrin that the revivalism of previous generations had done little to stem economic polarization and theological dissent. Sensing the impotence of their moral cause, they interpreted religion in America to be in a state of crisis.

Yet there had to be more to the story. The historians who have written about religion in the Gilded Age---Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. and Paul A. Carter, to name a few---do so with a keen eye to the urban phenomena that occurred. It is, however, somewhat imaginative to suggest that the cities determined the whole breadth of American cultural mentality, especially at the point in history when urbanization was beginning to take shape. The main force behind this study was my own interest in how the regional difference in the American religious landscape yields new insights into religious culture and the religious perception of contemporary society and culture. Even in the likelihood that Protestant citizens from rural areas of the country did agree with their urban brethren, the perception that those rural people held presented new forms and new presuppositions. Thus, this extended essay concludes that the Methodists in southern Illinois did perceive similar sociological and intellectual challenges to Protestant ideals, but only as these challenges presented obstacles on the Methodists' course of creating a "Christian America."