I came across the article Is God Dead in Europe? by James Gannon on Yahoo! News. Gannon highlights the increasing secularization that is occurring in many western European countries and how this trend of secularization may be possible in the United States. Increasing secularization is indeed likely in many sectors of the U.S. population but the causes outlined in the article may not actually be the root of what is happening. The article paints secularization in the U.S. as part of a liberal political agenda.

In his 2001 book, The Death of the West, conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan argues that a European-style "de-Christianization of America" is the goal of many liberals - and they are succeeding.

Court decisions that have banned school-sponsored prayer, removed many Nativity scenes from public squares, and legalized gay marriage are part of that pattern, as is the legal effort to erase "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency and "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Europe is showing us where this path leads. It is not the right path for America.

While secular values on the rise, they are doing so because of value changes in the adult population. In their analysis of secularization trends worldwide, Sacred and Secular, Religion and Politics Worldwide, Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart identify that one of the largest determiners of secular values has to do with a low level of existential insecurity during the formative years of childhood. More simply, as standards of living have risen in Europe and in the U.S., people are less threatened in their daily existence by weather, disease, starvation, etc. People growing up in secure environments tend to hold more secular values including a decreasing likelihood of attending a church. While Norris and Inglehart indicate that the current religiosity of a society will influence church participation rates, it does not counteract secularization trends.

While Gannon is correct in his estimation that the U.S. will become more secular, it is the result of an affluent and safe society, and not the result of a de-Christianizing political agenda. The liberal agendas implicated by the article are likely another form of the values held by an increasingly secular adult population. The sections of the U.S. population that have been shielded from existential threats will likely continue to become more like secular Europe.