It's bit more complicated than that. I would recommend the writings of John Judis and Ruy Texeira, both from their books and their articles in The New Republic. They have documented that religious sentiment has its peaks and troughs, and we are in a downslope now.
Pollsters such as Gallup, Harris, Field and Christian polling firms such as Barna have all documented religious sentiment. They all agree that there were peaks in 1958 and 1996, with a trough in 1977. The 38 year period between peaks indicates a generational character, which makes sense. There being no data gathering of this type before World War II, there is no way of knowing what pre-war peaks annd troughs look like, but one could extrapolate a peak in 1920 and a trough in 1939. Looking at the popular culture of those times, that would also make sense.
This creates a sine wave as follows:
Peak in 1920 (guess)
Trough in 1939 (guess)
Peak in 1958 (documented)
Trough in 1977 (documented)
Peak in 1996 (documented)
Trough in 2015 (guess)
(If I were gifted in the use of HTML and graphical software, I'd draw you a curve.)
But Judis and Texeira have shown that the peak of 1996 was lower than the peak of 1958. The downslope we are currently in now makes it appear that the trough of 2015 will be substantially lower than the trough of 1977. If you follow price trends of things such as stocks and commodities, a sine wave with lower peaks and lower troughs is the sign of a bear market. Since the end of World War II, religion has been in a bear market in this country.
But Judis and Texeira have pointed out something more important by drawing a 50% line on the horizontal axis. By 2015 when we hit the next trough, a majority of Americans will be religious Unbelievers. (Judis and Texeira believe this is so important that they capitalize the U in Unbeliever, thus to show that it is as much a "religion" as any other.) Because of this falling off in religious sentiment, Judis and Texeira believe that Progressives and Democrats have a strong future because the Republicans' "marriage" with the Devoutly Religious is no longer an advantage, especially by 2015. This may explain recent actions by McCain and the RNC toward the Devoutly Religious within the party. The RNC can read polls too.
That’s extremely interesting. Thank you so much! I’ll look for Judis and Texeira.