First of all, all this is saying is that in another 15 years we're going to have maybe a third of Americans who simply won't state a religious preference. That

First of all, all this is saying is that in another 15 years we're going to have maybe a third of Americans who simply won't state a religious preference. That still makes America a very religious nation, overall. But if you look at who's demographics are shifting older, a negative trend is why there is so much of a resugence of extreme variants of fundamentalism in the US. Fascism, monarchism, and theocratic proponents are very loud right now and visibility stunts from organizations like WBC and 1488-christian-identity people exist because fundamentalist religious folks feel this pressure very hard right now. These folks know their ideology is failing to grow substantially, so they're trying to increase visibility and capture more disaffected, frustrated, or sympathetic people in their particular brand of self-sustaining fundamentalist thought. Many of them have failed to form a cohesive and accepted national identity (the way mormonism has), so outrageous stunts like public displays of swastikas or protesting solider's funerals (because "gays aren't stoned or hung so god killed this solider") are really the easiest way to try and reclaim some prominence in American discourse. More moderate religions are faring better because they focus on providing a sense of community without all those embarrassing and controversial fundamentalist tenants. I am no longer religious, but I have lots of friends who are happy in moderate churches that claim growth. We're even seeing advertisements in San Francisco for a specific kind of communal church with vague kinds of unitarian values, focusing on community. They're VC funded! They have an App!