As a reaction, I think its underlying impetus is islamophobic renaissance broughy to the forefront by 9/11 and the associated media and political response. Angloids latched on, in part, to Christianity because it was proximal, but in terms of the material changes that were happening, and what consent needed to br manufactured, it really revolved around the question of how to dehumanize muslims and make them deserving targets of violence.
Some of the new atheists were pretty explicit that islam was their primary enemy and doubler and tripled and quadrupled down on islamophobic rhetoric even as people stopped caring about atheist stuff. That crowd is the same one that also went down the misogynist path.
It's that and the fact that the Soviets didn't go far enough to purge/reeducate Balts that were, at minimum, 100% fine with the Nazis. A pretty common pattern, actually: the USSR plays something soft for good will and gets smacked because the other side were unredeemably fascist.