71% of Americans would die for their religion, according to a recent ICM poll.
73% are convinced God exists — an incredible figure in a country living under the ’separation of Church and State’.
Upon arriving here at Penn in August, I soon discovered that three of the girls living across the hall from me went to church most Sundays. And another girl I met in my first week was a committed Christian who had been to church every week for as long as she could remember. Compared to my life back home at Edinburgh University, this was a whole new ball game.
In the UK, only 7% of the population claim to attend a religious service every week. I know only three committed Christians at Edinburgh, people who’d attend regular church services. I know of no committed Jews. Yet here at Penn, I met four such people within my first week.
Back home we have the Church of England, an established state church in an officially Christian country. Queen Elizabeth II is the head of that church and is crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Westminster Abbey.
All of this is in direct contrast with the US Constitution, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. Imagine the US President being the official head of the Church of America and being inaugurated by a Bishop in a ceremony held in Washington National Cathedral! Thomas Jefferson would turn in his grave.
And yet 57% of Americans say religion is a very important part of their life, 58% believe religion could solve all or most problems today and 41% profess to be born again or ‘evangelical’ Christians. This country is clearly a religious nation — Church and State are about as separate as Ben & Jerry.
Coming from the UK, Super Churches that can hold 25,000 people are as foreign as ice hockey and food trucks. A church for 25,000 people?! I’d be surprised if my local church pulled in a congregation of 25.
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| Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas seats 25,000 and has sports fields, a foodcourt and an arcade on the premises. |
Which got me thinking, why is this so? Why is religion so dominant in the US and so limp in the UK? College sophomore Erica Evans says her religious roots are as much cultural as anything else — “Being a black woman from the south, I’m part of a community that remembers slavery and can see the huge steps black people have made in America today. That in itself is a reason to believe in God”. She also believes Christianity plays a large role in providing a “moral upbringing”, for people of all races.
For black society, the burning ashes of slavery may well be doused by religion. But more generally, religious strength in the US comes from the country’s foundation, as a new home for persecuted Europeans. Here, this melting pot of cultures and races are brought together by their beliefs. America clearly is religious, constitutionally secular or not. As John Adams said in 1775, “We recognize no sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus.”
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January 29th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
The statistics you list are just plain wrong. First off, I can’t fully refute them because the links you listed all lead back to the DP’s homepage, but I’m assuming the ICM is the “International Christian Ministries,” the “International Cooperative Ministries,” or something of the sort. Consider you sources! You’ll find that most established polls hover at around 40% for national church attendance, while most statisticians place the actual numbers at between 15-30% due to other evidence and the way the polls are conducted. But even beyond that, stop buying into the revisionist history of America! This country was founded by opportunistic entrepreneurs. The reason why the Puritans get so much play in our history books is because they founded seminaries (Harvard) and wrote everything down. Yes, there’re a lot of Christians in America, but don’t overestimate their size and political efficacy. It’s misinformation like this that has been used as a justification to blur that line between church and state in recent years.