We are rapidly heading towards a modern American version of the Counter-Reformation, with cuius regio eius religio. If your state governor is evangelical, they are making a theocratic state. Otherwise a liberal governor a secular state. I cannot emphasize how dangerous this is.
We are not as far off from "official state religions" as you would think. While the 1st Amendment's establishment clause might preclude a national religion, zealots are and will increasingly press for municipal, county and state recognition of Christianity as supreme.
While I am a Christian, I am enough of a henotheistic heteroclite to not wish to deny another their faith of conscience (or to hold no faith at all). However, the trend line is alarming. And diverging. As overall religiosity is declining, for many, their faith is "hardening."
This is not purely American phenomenon either. Or exclusively limited to Christianity. We are seeing radical Buddhist violence. Hindu "Saffronization." Islamic extremism. Russian Orthodox militancy. Africa. Asia. Europe. We are trending towards increasingly xenophobic.
Counter to all of this is "cosmopolitanism." The belief of a universal city of humankind. Regardless of faith, race, gender or other difference. The concept that we can all get along. A social "win-win."
Reactionary partisanship, xenophobia, parochialism and zealotry is arrayed against this movement. They see this global struggle as a tribalist "win-lose."
The struggle of the 21st Century is, and will be, cosmopolitanism vs. parochial xenophobia. Whether we are going to espouse egalitarian ideals -- as we say in America, "e pluribus unum" ("out of many, one") -- or supremacist "America [or insert your own tribe here] first."
In this struggle, my ally is the Sikh, the Muslim, the Jew, the Atheist, the Hindu, etc., who seeks to engender cosmopolitanism. Our rivals are those of our co-religionists who wish to see their brand of faith or politics, emerge "victorious" in whatever triumphalist sense.
tl;dr: Be wary of the zealots. Now, and in the decades to come.
