Some congregations are casting off generic texts and hymns. Others are requiring denominational training for children for the first time in years. The reassertion of sectarian beliefs began in the early 1990s, many ministers say, but has lately grown much stronger.
Some clerics say that years of smorgasbord services have left their members feeling disconnected.
Project Identity was started after a 1996 poll revealed that only 3 percent of Americans could say anything about Lutheranism other than it was a religion. Lutheran leaders ruefully recall a Pennsylvania newspaper that several years ago published a photo of Martin Luther King Jr., instead of Martin Luther, alongside an ad for Lutheran services. University Baptist church in Seattle is typical of the changing tides. About 60 percent of the congregation did not grow up Baptist. But in recent years, University Baptist began reasserting its sectarian identity.