The least surprising move he could have made if you were closely tied into the skeptic/atheist movement in the 2000s/2010s. The Four Horsemen of Atheism unilaterally sucked, and the New Atheist movement overall was largely just a cover to launder Iraq-war-era Islamophobia and antisemitism as intellectualism rather than blind hate. Criticism of the Christian right was largely only tolerated at best or accepted through the lens of libertarian anti-government activism, rather than a genuine concern for the majority of the movement.