The rise of a secular culture, combined with an increasing number of self-identified atheists and agnostics in western societies, has led to a certain amount of handwringing among religious believers. Secularists, the argument goes, are starting to become mean and nasty: as the culture war's victors, they are acting vindictive and cruel. It's only a matter of time before religious believers are tarred, feathered, and sent to re-education camps.

You might think I am exaggerating, but only slightly. The New Statesman recently ran a cover story about atheist intolerance; the piece claimed that religious believers were under sustained attack. And now Damon Linker, in The Week, has written an article about the secular arrogance that supposedly characterizes our current era. Of this arrogance, he writes, "When liberals act that way, they run the risk of turning themselves into latter-day Jacobins, the anti-religious zealots who dominated the French Revolution during its most radical phase." Given the stakes, it's worth stepping back a bit and examining this moment, at least before Linker and Billy Graham are decapitated by Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne.

On one point, of course, Linker is correct. Western societies are largely secular. Even in countries like the United States, which contain high levels of religiosity, popular culture, education, and politics all operate within an essentially secular paradigm. (When a movie like The Passion of the Christ makes gargantuan amounts of money, it really does feel like an exception from the norm, because indeed it is.) And yet religion continues to prosper: presidential candidates discuss their faith, people still go to church, most Americans draw a connection between religion and morality, and religious leaders continue to hold real sway. Christmas has been commercialized, but it is hardly under siege.

Thus, one might argue, increasing secularization is not in fact a huge threat to religious liberty. Religion can survive a secular culture. But Linker and others are intent on making precisely the opposite argument: that the next wave of secularization will be marked by radical anger and score-settling. Some of this is surely politically motivated: just look at a recent USA Today column from Fox News's Kirsten Powers, which presents the Obama administration as bullying and abrasive and intent on going after nuns who oppose the contraception mandate. (Linda Greenhouse shreds Powers's silly piece here.) But some of this discontent, including Linker's undoubtedly sincere piece, is surely motivated by feelings of genuine concern.

Linker's argument is essentially as follows: