Timeline for Why is the US so religious compared to other Western democracies?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
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| Jul 15, 2022 at 0:02 | comment | added | ohwilleke♦ | This misses one of the most obvious ones, which is the U.S. does not have an established religion, while the vast majority of more secular countries do or did until recently. | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 9:20 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Mar 18, 2020 at 19:35 | comment | added | TylerH | This answer could also benefit from the significant behind-the-scenes political maneuvering of Doug Coe & his organization, and those of other similar individuals who were very influential at pushing Christianity onto national-level leaders/politicians. | |
| Mar 17, 2020 at 11:31 | comment | added | Dohn Joe | Could the term "Pilgrim" meaning the first settlers be considered sort-of propaganda. The common meaning of pilgrim is a travel to a religious site. Yet, the first settlers travelled to a distant land, which featured no christianity whatsoever, initially. I know, that this term is deeply engrained historically, yet factually it's incorrect. They were settlers. | |
| Mar 16, 2020 at 20:39 | comment | added | tim | @nick012000 Hospitals may have a lesser impact on proselytizing (though they do have an effect on society when they are allowed to withhold care or make employment decision based on their believes), but schools and kindergartens eg in Germany are often run by Christian churches as well (mostly financed by taxpayers though). And those do heavily proselytize (for some reason, they just don't seem to be all that successful at it). | |
| Mar 16, 2020 at 20:38 | comment | added | asgallant | Good answer, but its worth noting that the idea of the US being a "Christian nation" is a response to Soviet atheism, constructed as another axis to diametrically oppose the USSR on. Prior to the cold war, the various Christian sects in the US would have generally objected to being grouped together under a single label. | |
| Mar 16, 2020 at 15:18 | vote | accept | CDJB♦ | ||
| Mar 16, 2020 at 12:44 | comment | added | Machavity | @nick012000 Another point along those lines is that the Catholics have already "saturated the market" in most cases (they've been around a lot longer than most Protestant denominations). There's not many places that have not been touched in some way by Catholicism. Baptists, on the other hand, still have lots of open territory, both in the US and abroad. | |
| Mar 16, 2020 at 12:37 | comment | added | nick012000 | @Pere I think that the Catholic hospitals probably have less of an impact than the Baptist church-planting ministry. It's literally an arm of their organization devoted to growing the size of said organization, like if a fast-food chain had an office in their corporate HQ devoted entirely to trying to find new franchisees. | |
| Mar 16, 2020 at 2:12 | comment | added | Jan | I suspect most Europeans could give you some version of what happened on Christmas and to a lesser extent some version of what happened on Easter – both significant holidays in European countries even in Scandinavia where people are least religious. However arguably, when asked in the street the stories of what is supposed to have happened on both these holidays can get rather amusing to the informed observer. | |
| Mar 15, 2020 at 15:27 | comment | added | Machavity | @Pere Yes, but the Catholic Church used to be much more political in Europe as well, which may explain why Europe might still be skeptical of them. It was something of a big deal when JFK was elected, since he was the first and only Roman Catholic President. | |
| Mar 15, 2020 at 14:53 | comment | added | Pere | About the last paragraph: the Catholic Church also runs an network of hospitals in some European countries, and, even more important, a large network of schools - often partially funded with taxpayer's money. However, church attendance and religiosity is low and keeps declining. Those networks aren't likely to be an important factor in keeping the US religious because in Europe they just don't work. | |
| Mar 14, 2020 at 23:07 | comment | added | President James K. Polk | I like Ted Wrigley's answer but I think this answer gives a much better background to the present religious landscape in the US. I'm surprised you didn't mention the inclusion of the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, a pledge that was ironically written by a socialist. | |
| Mar 14, 2020 at 21:22 | history | answered | Machavity | CC BY-SA 4.0 |