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AP Photo/Noah Berger In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a group of prominent atheist scholars dubbed “The New Atheists” set about demonizing religion, and Christianity in particular. Books like The God Delusion, The End of Faith, and God Is Not Great argued that “religion poisons everything,” inspiring hatred, intolerance, war, you name it. Yet as America has become more secular in the last two decades, partisan rancor has increased, not decreased. U.S. church membership held roughly steady at 70 percent or higher from 1937 through 1976, according to Gallup. The average dropped slightly to 68 percent from the 1970s through the 1990s. Yet in the past 20 years, church membership has dropped precipitously. While 77 percent of Americans identify themselves with an organized religion, only 50 percent say they are a member of a church or synagogue. ....