Farewell to Faith: Democracy, the Decline in American Public Religion, and the Rise of the Non-Religious

The United States national identity is changing as the non-religious population is growing and fewer Americans follow traditional Christian faiths. When Alexis De Tocqueville visited the United States, he found that the national government gained legitimacy and support from the popular national religion. This faith was nominally Christian but lacked any meaningful theological content. The national creed was a simple monotheism that was supported through the public’s integration of a Cartesian methodology. This national religion was critical in providing the foundation for American economic growth and identity. Today, fewer Americans identify as Christians than at any point in its history, and more citizens have no religious preference or creed. The dominant religious culture is changing, and to understand the United States future, it is important to identify the political preferences of the non-religious population. This paper looks at the most recent Cooperative Election Survey and assesses the non-religious population’s political participation and its aggregate support for U.S. military aid to Ukraine. The data show that the non-religious population is less politically active and more opposed to miliary aid to Kyiv. United States is becoming more secular. The division between the traditional religious and the growing secular populations is generating a cultural conflict—one that has a fundamental consequence for the American national identity.