I will try and dig out the great article I read on this last year. “Cultural Christian” has been the biggest identity trend in US last 10 years. Basically people who “don’t go to church but identify strongly as Christian”. It has nothing to do with Christianity & everything to with othering.
But also about prolonging the status quo of a certain socio-racial-economic group maintaining control over a society. ‘Our Christian forebearers controlled our society for centuries, we want to maintain that control but we don’t want to be beholden to that restrictive scripture stuff’.
If you find the article, I'd love to read it.