“Why is the US so religious as opposed to other developed countries?” a European friend asks me.
The reason is that the kind of religion most Americans practice is so easy, I tell him. It’s the perfect religion for lazy consumers who want no hardship and no obligations.
I mean, take the Greek Orthodox Christianity. That religion is extremely hard and requires many sacrifices from the faithful. I don’t belong to it and would never consider belonging but I have to recognize that one has to be very serious about one’s faith to fulfill all the requirements. Just consider the endless fasts when you have to give up sex and all the good food. Can you imagine Americans giving up on eating anything tasty for several months out of a year? Yeah, right.
Catholicism is easier but still quite hard. There is work to do, effort to make, sacrifices to offer.
Judaism and Islam are equally demanding when done seriously and conscientiously. Practicing these religions is like having a second job with no pay.
And now consider the US Evangelicals. They don’t have to do anything to consider themselves religious. There is no fasting, no confession, no repentance, no authority to respect and obey. Feel like proclaiming yourself a founder of a new church? Go ahead! Feel like stuffing your face with hamburgers, guzzling beer, yet still feeling super self-righteous? Knock yourself out! Feel like engaging in every act of depravity between bouts of massive preaching? Feel free! The only requirements consist of attending services that look more like Broadway musicals every once in a while and hating gays and feminists. Easy peasy! What’s not to like about a nifty religion like that?
Can you imagine any of the Americans who foam at the mouth with their so-called religiousness giving up on alcohol and praying five times a day for their beliefs? Let’s agree that it isn’t very likely.
Please don’t think I’m condemning Americans for choosing this consumerist approach to religion. I’m an even better consumer than they are and, as a result, my religiousness requires even less that theirs. I don’t need either to attend services or hate gays and feminists to practice it.
Clarissa's Blog 
Why isn’t this type of religion popular in the less committed European countries, like Britain, then? When my family converted to Anglicanism I was given a C and E upbringing – not C of E, because C and E stand for Christmas and Easter, the only days the ever took me church. This is pretty much the standard for most children of my generation, and most British “Christians” only refer to themselves as such because they were taught to by their parents. It has zero impact on their lifestyles. But I wouldn’t call this country religious to the same degree America here – even though our secularism is far less official, religion is generally considered sub-political. We don’t have an equivalent to the Republican Party, as hard as UKIP is trying. So what’s going on? I’d say it’s because American culture has a heavily ingrained moral self-righteousness as well as consumerism, but Britain still has a very rigid morality, just a much more secular one..
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What you are describing is a higher stage of evolution which consists of no organized religion at all. Give us 80+ years, and we will catch up. 🙂
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Fundamentalist Xtians, at least the ones among whom I grew up, would never taste alcohol. I remember a sermon in which the speaker said that he had been at times in a home in which beer was consumed. He said they kept it in the refrigerator. There was an audible gasp from the congregation; they had likely assumed, without thinking, that anyone who drank beer was so ashamed of it that they kept it hidden where no one could ever see it, like a dark corner of the basement.
The real reason for religiosity in the U. S. is merely a historical artifact; a significant fraction of the Europeans who settled here came to escape religious persecution and were therefore extremely serious about their faith. The religious practices here nowadays are best regarded as fossils of the situation centuries ago.
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I remember this fundamentalist guy I met at Yale. He told us that in his county alcohol was illegal because of their faith and ranted at those of us who were having alcoholic drinks (this encounter took place at the graduate students’ club.) Then, he proceeded to tell us about his two favorite cocaine dealers on campus, discussing the relative merits of their product with gusto. When we asked him how he managed to reconcile these things, he got angry and said we had no right to judge his religion.
Another one of my Evangelical friends had to be carried out of a bar every Saturday night and straight onto a bus that would take her to the place of worship she visited every Sunday morning.
“Are you sure God wants to see you this way?” I asked. She told me God knew she was pure at heart.
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Not all Americans are evangelicals. Are you saying that the Greek Orthodox church in America is different than a Greek Orthodox church in Greece? Or are you just saying that a Baptist in America is different than a Baptist in England? I know some Catholics who never take sacraments or confess, but yet they are still Catholic in their eyes even though the religion says differently. There are people in every religion who hold their own view of what everything should be over what their practicing faith tells them it should be, I think that is human nature to want to try to control everything around you.
As for all evangelicals denouncing gays – look at this list that shows LGBT churches, there are even Baptist ones on the list! www. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT-affirming_Christian_denominations
Episcopals and Lutherans were the first (I think) to do that (as well as to have women preachers and therefore they aren’t feminist if they promote women to a position historically held by men -IMO.)
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This is supposed to be a humorous post. 🙂 I even added the tag “humor” because I knew people would be taking this too seriously. 🙂 🙂
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Ah, just saw that tag down there, you got me.
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Back in the 1950s when I was growing up (yeah, “Leave It to Beaver” territory), professing a family religion was considered socially mandatory, like having parents who were legally married and not shacking up.
So the easiest religion to have was a mainstream, non-fundamentalist Protestant variety, where all your family had to do was say a 15-second ritual prayer at the daily supper table, and then spend 1 hour a week listening to a bland sermon on Sunday, after which the family could treat itself to a nice meal at a local restaurant. Nobody that I knew in my hometown seemed to take it very seriously.
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This is what I’m saying. 🙂
I keep feeling very weird every time I do the paperwork for lab tests and it asks me what my religion is. I ignore the question because it seems very random.
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Well, I’m a retired physician, and I NEVER saw any lab paperwork that inquired about religion, so yes, that is weird. (Hospital admissions forms always ask, so they’ll know which minister/priest/rabbi to to call if you need last rites.)
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These are very basic blood tests, so I hope nobody is envisioning the last rites for me just yet. 🙂
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How about first rites?
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They just ask so that if you feel like you need ‘spiritual’ assistance, they will get you the right kind. If you are Muslim, I don’t think you’d be happy with a Rabbi or a Priest and vice versa.
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Do people really need spiritual assistance to get their blood taken? 🙂
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