My deliverer is coming (but only on weekdays)

With no white smoke to herald its decision, the United States Postal Service announced in early February that beginning in August, American homes would no longer receive mail delivery on Saturdays. Several weeks later, the House passed a funding bill requiring that Saturday mail delivery continue.

Through the off-again, on-again plans for the Saturday mail, religious leaders and organizations remained quiet. Perhaps they had too many other pressing concerns. What was missed was any discussion of the postal service’s importance in American religious history, a history that has been marked by religious frustration and innovation.

As historian Richard R. John has shown, in its first decades after the American Revolution the post office was an “agent of change” that brought together the villages and towns through the consistent and reliable transmission of newspapers and other materials. It continued to shape Americans’ lives even after the telegraph and then the telephone reoriented communications. At times the post office was a tool for evangelical and liberal churches—though at other times it was a profound irritation for evangelical Protestants.