Abstract
Abstract The United States has long been considered an exception to the process of secularization, even among those who are favorable to theory. This chapter argues that the so-called American exception to secularization has been overstated, and that the tide of disaffiliation seen in other Western countries has arrived there as well. Further, the relative religiosity of the United States is consistent with existential security theory, since states that offer greater existential security (great social and economic equality, less crime and violence, etc.) tend to be less religious. The American case also offers another explanation for secularization: the connection between religion and conservative political values. In the United States, religious decline is partly driven by the perceived link between religious (particularly evangelical) institutions and deeply conservative positions on gender, sexuality, and the family.
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