After World War II America saw itself as “the protector of Western culture.” As the Soviet Union became more secular, the United States remained primarily Protestant and added the phrase “one nation under God” to its Pledge of Allegiance. As war veterans returned home they wanted to fit in with their communities and found solidarity at church. Civilians also sought religion following the war. As a result church attendance skyrocketed to record breaking rates. “Being ‘normal’ was a highly valued social ideal during this time,” says Jacobsen.
Loyalties to a certain Protestant denomination have gone way down since the war. So much so that American Protestants of different denominations have started to refer to themselves as just “Christians.” Non-denominational Protestants have begun identifying themselves more with their particular congregation than with the denomination itself. Protestant membership has continued to decline and even lost its majority status sometime during the nineties. It seems to have been replaced by a large increase in popularity of the evangelical subgroup, the largest religion today. The American religious profile has changed in other ways since the World War II.
Since the 70s, religions other than Protestant, Catholic and Pentecostal have seen an increase of 2%. The number of people identifying as nonreligious has also increased from 2% to 20% in 2015. Many of these individuals prefer to see themselves as spiritual, rather than religious.
Early Baptists were the first to believe in a concept called soul competency, or soul liberty. This led to the development of an ideal that many believe to this day. This is the concept of the right to believe whatever an individual believes in their heart, for lack of a better term. Many American believe it any intrusion into this can be spiritually harmful. At the same time American Christians think it is their responsibility to share their faith in an effort to convert others. This is in an effort to make others aware and give them an opportunity to choose to practice.