George Sorry, but from looking in from the outside you don't. Even most American atheists show social religious conventions. (While in most EU states, even the "believers" show religious conventions in public perhaps a dozen times a year.) Just observation as mentioned from the outside, and a little observations from my American coworkers that I happen to meet at least once a year.
Religion is getting politicized in the USA, by the conservatives. So it will not go away quietly as it has here.
I think above all, religious matters are getting more divisive in America, while they seem to be getting more harmonious in western central Europe. Over here, even believers start becoming more open towards criticism of the church as an institution, which results in many former catholics and lutherans becoming more like non-denominational christians, whereas in the US, the people tending towards secularism are becoming more secular while the devoutly religious become more fundamentalist. I would say the age divide is on the side of secularists in the long run, but in the short term, the aforementioned culture war will result in that secularization being a rather unpleasant affair compared to what Europe went through in recent decades.
I would also argue that "mainline protestant" might mean something completely different in the USA compared to, say, Germany.
But again this is getting quite a bit political.
)
