# Why is the US so religious? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 14, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846 "2005-05-14T18:04:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/1 "2005-05-14T18:04:29Z")
In [this Pit thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=316481), I asked a question which I will rephrase to better suit Great Debates. How come religion is such a big issue in the US? In much of the developed world, and certainly most of Northern and Western Europe, religion is or is becoming a political nonissue. Anyone who opposed abortion on religious grounds here in Sweden would be seen as a rather quaint and odd person. We have civil unions between same-sex partners, and there was never any outcry one way or the other; it just happened. _Spain_, machisto Catholic country as it is, has gender-neutral marriage laws now. Sure there are a few holdouts, like Ireland, but they’re the exception. But on the other side of the Atlantic, you are passing religion-based amendments to make sure gays can’t marry, your school boards want to teach religious alternatives to evolution, and abortion is actually a hot political issue, which is nearly incomprehensible to me. Why is this? Why the US? ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/2 "2005-05-14T18:14:23Z")
I think a lot of it has to do with US politics. The Republican party knows that much of their success is due to fundamentalist votes as well as donations. Most people in the US don’t wake up in the morning worried about gay marriage or abortion. A very noisy minority does. However, their votes and money have been seen as crucial to the Republicans. The Republicans have to at least pay lip service to the views of these fundamentalists. ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/3 "2005-05-14T18:15:46Z")
Man, I live here, and have no idea how it’s come to this point. Rather, how it’s been allowed to get to this point. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/4 "2005-05-14T18:21:32Z")
The Bible Belt is the big issue. But not sure of the history of that area which caused it to become “The Bible belt”, so I can’t comment other than to point thataway. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/5 "2005-05-14T18:21:59Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > I think a lot of it has to do with US politics. The Republican party knows that much of their success is due to fundamentalist votes as well as donations. Well, that’s just pushing the question one step further away. Why is it the case in the US that one party owes much of its success to fundamentalist votes? How can the fundamentalists be so strong there? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/6 "2005-05-14T18:34:31Z")
I suspect it’s to do with a history of immigration of people escaping religious persecution in Europe. If your ancestors held religious beliefs strong enough for them to migrate to the US, then you are likely to have similar strong beliefs. The ones left behind in Europe were those who supported the established religion, oir who didn’t care much one way or the other. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/7 "2005-05-14T18:37:21Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I suspect it’s to do with a history of immigration of people escaping religious persecution in Europe. If your ancestors held religious beliefs strong enough for them to migrate to the US, then you are likely to have similar strong beliefs. The ones left behind in Europe were those who supported the established religion, oir who didn’t care much one way or the other. Was the percentage of people leaving Europe for the US because of religious persecution really that high? The reasons I’ve heard are usually poverty, famine and the like. ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/8 "2005-05-14T18:38:37Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I suspect it’s to do with a history of immigration of people escaping religious persecution in Europe. If your ancestors held religious beliefs strong enough for them to migrate to the US, then you are likely to have similar strong beliefs. The ones left behind in Europe were those who supported the established religion, oir who didn’t care much one way or the other. I have read this as well. Many of the migrant groups were persecuted protestant sects. When they arrived in the US, those that ended up in rural areas stayed (became) much more conservative. Those that lived in coastal cities, with more trade and cosmopolitany, generally became more open and progressive. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/9 "2005-05-14T19:03:06Z")
Religious is a bigger **political** issue in the United States then in most of the rest of the western world for the simple reason that we have more religious people here. According to Wikipedia: > [@wiki](#): > > Gallup International reports that 57 percent of American citizens regularly attend religious services, compared to 15 percent of French citizens, 10 percent of UK citizens, and 25 percent of Israeli citizens. As a result it’s far more profitable for politicians to play for the religoius vote here, and frame non-religious debates in relgious terms. I don’t think this can be said to be a new thing, folks in the US have always been fairly religious, and as a result it has always played a roll in politics. So the question becomes why do we remain more religous then say, the once religion dominated Europeans. There probably isn’t a simple answer, but I think that part of it is due to the Europeans rather more bloody experiences with religous wars and prosecution and the fact that once upon a time (and in the living memory of people in places like Ireland and Spain) the Church was a powerful and rather intolerant institution that, looking back, seems like something people would want to avoid. In the US we’ve seen far less of these sorts of these sort of influences and so the various religions have lost less of their creditbility. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/10 "2005-05-14T19:21:24Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > Was the percentage of people leaving Europe for the US because of religious persecution really that high? The reasons I’ve heard are usually poverty, famine and the like. Some of the earliest settlers left to escape religious persecution, but all the mass immigration movements (and some of the smaller very early ones, e.g., Jamestown) were for economic reasons or slavery. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/11 "2005-05-14T19:30:16Z")
> [@Malodorous](#): > > the (European) Church was a powerful and intolerant institution there is one huge difference between religious Americans and religious Europeans: European religions are highly bureaucratic, _institutionalized_, with political hierarchies . Americans take their religion _personally_, not institutionally. Institiutions gain and lose influence slowly, with less immediately visible political effect. Private individuals can change quickly.So if more individuals choose to “get saved” today than 15 years ago, it is reflected quickly in election results. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/12 "2005-05-14T19:34:47Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > In [this Pit thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=316481), I asked a question which I will rephrase to better suit Great Debates. > > How come religion is such a big issue in the US? In much of the developed world, and certainly most of Northern and Western Europe, religion is or is becoming a political nonissue. Anyone who opposed abortion on religious grounds here in Sweden would be seen as a rather quaint and odd person. We have civil unions between same-sex partners, and there was never any outcry one way or the other; it just happened. _Spain_, machisto Catholic country as it is, has gender-neutral marriage laws now. > > Sure there are a few holdouts, like Ireland, but they’re the exception. > > But on the other side of the Atlantic, you are passing religion-based amendments to make sure gays can’t marry, your school boards want to teach religious alternatives to evolution, and abortion is actually a hot political issue, which is nearly incomprehensible to me. > > Why is this? Why the US? Because we didn’t have to endure the Reformation, the wars of religion, the oppression of the Catholic and Protestant churches. By the time America was founded those issues had been thought about heavily by the Founders and they set up a system whereupon America could enjoy her religions and not be destroyed by them. Europe has spent century after century tearing itself apart in religious and ideological dissent, so much so that, imho, the real question is: why do Europeans take their beliefs so seriously? Anybody who brings modern politics into this discussion really has no clue as to what they’re talking about as this is an issue of historical development, not current events: the declining religiosity (?) of Europe viz the US has been going on since the founding of the Republic. ---
**Author:** ![La\_Llorona](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@La\_Llorona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/La_Llorona)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/13 "2005-05-14T19:41:04Z")
Interesting question! Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we’ve got Puritans as our (spiritual, at least) ancestors? All that “city upon a hill” jazz. I also seem to remember something about the original thirteen colonies being rather segregated with regard to religion–didn’t Anne Hutchinson flee because of persecution? But then again, that was a terribly long time ago and doesn’t go too far to explain why we still have this uber-religious mindset… ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/14 "2005-05-14T19:42:40Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Because we didn’t have to endure the Reformation, the wars of religion, the oppression of the Catholic and Protestant churches. By the time America was founded those issues had been thought about heavily by the Founders and they set up a system whereupon America could enjoy her religions and not be destroyed by them. > > Europe has spent century after century tearing itself apart in religious and ideological dissent, so much so that, imho, the real question is: why do Europeans take their beliefs so seriously? > > Anybody who brings modern politics into this discussion really has no clue as to what they’re talking about as this is an issue of historical development, not current events: the declining religiosity (?) of Europe viz the US has been going on since the founding of the Republic. Bingo. BTW–the Bible belt was & is intensely _rural_, often with long travel required to reach urban areas. In the 18th & 19th Centuries, this meant days of travel, on horse or afoot, along dirt roads or game trails, to reach a city. The local churches thus doubled as assembly halls & social centers. Any public gathering was likely to occur under local religious auspecies (sp?). This require approval of local religious leaders. The first lending libraries were church-affiliated, too. Thus, Southern/Midwestern/Bible-Belt culture evolved around the churches. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/15 "2005-05-14T19:59:03Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Because we didn’t have to endure the Reformation, the wars of religion, the oppression of the Catholic and Protestant churches. By the time America was founded those issues had been thought about heavily by the Founders and they set up a system whereupon America could enjoy her religions and not be destroyed by them. Significant immigrations to the US have come about long since the events you mention - Ireland has been mentioned already, and there’s obviously many others. They were about poverty, and the ‘land of opportunity’…not ‘the land of freedom to exercise religious beliefs’. Some of the comments in this thread suggest to me that some Americans take to heart the story of the Pilgrim Fathers, and base all other immigrations around that model. > [@](#): > > Anybody who brings modern politics into this discussion really has no clue as to what they’re talking about A brave statement. Especially as you fail to define ‘modern’ 😉 > [@](#): > > the declining religiosity (?) of Europe viz the US has been going on since the founding of the Republic. Cite? Every reference I’ve seen to this matter has indicated that the significant divergence in the decline in relgiousity (however you measure it) in Europe compared to the US has been over the past 60 years. There’s an obvious event that took place preceding that… ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/16 "2005-05-14T20:03:54Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Because we didn’t have to endure the Reformation, the wars of religion, the oppression of the Catholic and Protestant churches. By the time America was founded those issues had been thought about heavily by the Founders and they set up a system whereupon America could enjoy her religions and not be destroyed by them. The irony is that the US religious organizations of today fight so hard against the first amendement, which is probably the key to their relative succsess here when compared to how thier European counterparts have faired. > [@](#): > > Anybody who brings modern politics into this discussion really has no clue as to what they’re talking about as this is an issue of historical development, not current events: the declining religiosity (?) of Europe viz the US has been going on since the founding of the Republic. Out of curiousity, is American religion still in decline? I have a vague sense that while the current political climate has made people feel their is a religoius upswelling int the US, that this may not in fact be the case. Anyone have any relavant statistics? I think it would help clarify what we’re discussing in this debate. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/17 "2005-05-14T21:33:07Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Cite? Every reference I’ve seen to this matter has indicated that the significant divergence in the decline in relgiousity (however you measure it) in Europe compared to the US has been over the past 60 years. There’s an obvious event that took place preceding that… As a comparison, I’ll note that in forty years, Quebec passed from probably the most intensely religion-based society north of the Rio Grande to probably the least. “Modern” religion/politics probably has something to do with it, I’d wager. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/18 "2005-05-14T21:57:33Z")
> [@](#): > > A brave statement. Especially as you fail to define ‘modern’ Sometimes ya just gotta be bold. 😃 By “modern”, I mean yammering about “Republicans/Bush/Christian Right/Moral Majority” etc etc etc, i.e. post-1980ish. The differences between Europe and America in re: religion was palpable in de Tocqueville’s day and have only become more so since then. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/19 "2005-05-14T22:23:38Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > By “modern”, I mean yammering about “Republicans/Bush/Christian Right/Moral Majority” etc etc etc, i.e. post-1980ish. The differences between Europe and America in re: religion was palpable in de Tocqueville’s day and have only become more so since then. OK, so you’ve defined ‘modern’. How do you perceive the general approaches to religion in western Europe and in America, from 1945 onwards? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2005, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846/20 "2005-05-14T22:26:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Cite? Every reference I’ve seen to this matter has indicated that the significant divergence in the decline in relgiousity (however you measure it) in Europe compared to the US has been over the past 60 years. There’s an obvious event that took place preceding that… Well, the French Revolution was a profoundly irreligious (anti-religious?) event, as was the driving out of the Jesuits prior to that (not to mention the Enlightenment itself, taken to its logical conclusions, left little room for Divine revelation). The Scopes trial of the 1920s was itself but a replay of the debates carried on in England 50 years prior, and frankly, I can’t imagine a 19th century American philosopher (if such a thing existed 😉 ) declaring that “God is dead”, regardless of what they (or Nietzsche irl) actually _meant_ by such a statement. If you want an actual cite as opposed to some blathering of examples, here’s a passage from Oxford Don J.M Roberts [History of the World](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195219279/qid=1116108882/sr=8-4/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl14/102-5868284-3806508?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), Book VII, Chapter 1 _The End of the Europeans’ World: Strains in the System_ (pp 700-701): > [@](#): > > The restraint exercised on European rulers by the consciousness of any unity other than that of a common resistance to revolution had, of course, long since collapsed together with the idea of Christendom. Nineteenth-century religion was only a palliative or mitigation of international conflict, a minor and indirect force, trickling through to a humanitarianism and pacifism fed from other sources. Christianity had proved as feeble a check to violence as would the hopes of socialists that the workers of the world would refuse to fight one another in the interests of their masters. Whether this was a result of a general loss of power by organized religion is not clear. Certainly much misgiving was felt by 1900 about its declining force as an agent regulating behaviour. This was not because a new religion of traditional form challenged the old Christian Churches. There had been, rather, a continuing development of trends observable in the eighteenth century and much more marked since the French Revolution. Almost all the Christian communions seemed more and more touched by the blight of one or other of the characteristic intellectual advances of the age. Nor did they seem able to exploit new devices - the late nineteenth-century appearance of mass-circulation newspapers for instance - which might have helped them… > > Politically, (the Roman Catholic Church) had begun to suffer from the whittling away of the Temporal Power in the 1790’s, when the French revolutionary armies brought revolutionary principles to Italy… Finally, in 1870, the last territory of the old Papal states outside the Vatican itself was taken by the new kingdom of Italy and the Papacy became almost entirely a purely spiritual and ecclesiastical authority. This was an end of temporal authority stretching back to Merovingian times and some felt it to be an inglorious one for an institution so long the centre of European civilization and history. Roberts goes on for a few more pages on this theme of declining religous influence in 19th-century Europe, including the effects of Biblical scholarship, the rise of science (especially Darwin), and the takeover of many social services (aid to the poor, for ex.) by the state that were once the sole province of the various churches. There’s quite a bit more all throughout the book, but I hope the passage quoted suffices. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-us-so-religious/303846.md?page=2)