Religious decline has made us sourer

America has witnessed a remarkable decline in religious observance over recent years, says Peter Beinart. The percentage of people rejecting any religious affiliation has shot up from 6% in 1992 to 23% in 2014. The hope among many observers was that this “new secularism” would have the welcome effect of easing the “culture wars”. It hasn’t turned out that way. As people have drifted away from organised religion, they “haven’t stopped viewing politics as a struggle between ‘us’ and ‘them’”. Instead, they’ve “come to define us and them in even more primal and irreconcilable ways”. Research shows that lapsed white evangelicals are more relaxed about former hot-button cultural issues such as the legalisation of cannabis and gay marriage, but “more hostile to African Americans, Latinos and Muslims”, and generally more pessimistic and resentful. The causation behind this trend is unclear. Did these people abandon organised religion because they were disillusioned? Or is it the absence of church attendance – with its exposure to the message of universal love and a modest level of racial integration – that soured their outlook and made them more intolerant? Either way, the sad reality is that the culture war that began in the 1960s and 1970s hasn’t faded out; it’s got worse.