Not too many Americans want to see their land become more like China, but it is doing so in at least one particular way: The United States is secularizing — and rapidly. In fact, more than a third of Americans under 30 and 23 percent of adults overall now claim no religious affiliation. This still pales in comparison to China’s corresponding 91- percent figure, but such people constituted only about seven percent of the U.S. population in the early 1990s. This phenomenon has serious implications. For one thing, church attendance is an excellent predictor of voting patterns, with those attending services regularly breaking Republican (being conservative) and atheists largely supporting Democrats (being liberal). The ideological aspect of this pattern is witnessed throughout the Western world, mind you. For example, Sweden, considered by many the Occident’s most “liberal” country, is also its most secular, with 73 percent of the population claiming atheist or non-religious status.
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