In this booklet, the late Theodore P. Letis, contends that the American religious environment, significantly shaped by radical Anabaptist perspectives, has diminished the quality of the Protestant and Reformed heritage in the United States. More specifically, he argues that the "democratization" of religious culture has resulted in a crisis concerning modern English Bible translations, marked by a consumer-focused market offering "demythologized" and "sanitized" Bibles that favor contemporary relevance over the concept of a sacred, poetic text.

Adapted from a lecture delivered before the Annual Symposium on the Lutheran Confessions at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana (January 20, 1999).