New Ipsos poll suggests Trump and Christian nationalism have discredited religion in the eyes of many Americans
In order to understand American secularisation, however, it is necessary to understand that because of Christian dominance and pervasive Christian privilege, many Americans’ primary association with religion is Christianity, and that shapes their responses to the questions about ‘religion’ they encounter in public opinion polls.
And one of the primary factors driving the secularising trend – the close association of Christianity with the cruel and anti-democratic politics of the Republican Party – is still very much in play, with intriguing findings about American attitudes toward religion and secularism from the latest Ipsos Global Religion report suggesting that this association continues to have an impact.
That marriage between conservative, mostly white Christianity and a Republican Party gleefully trampling the rights of queer people and women seems unlikely to end any time soon. And so long as that continues, we will probably continue to see empathetic Americans who grew up Christian deciding they no longer care to be religious in increasing numbers.