A Little Sociology from John Allen

Religion in America compared with Religion in Europe:

Vatican officials tend to see the United States as a bulwark against secularism, especially in contrast with contemporary realities in Western Europe. Despite the fact that one can certainly find strong pockets of secularism in America, especially among elites, the reality is that the United States remains a deeply religious culture. In the most recent global values survey by the Pew Forum, 59 percent of Americans said religion is “very important” to them, in contrast to 21 percent of the Germans, for example, and 11 percent of the French. The recent European debate about a “God clause” in the constitutional document of the E.U. would be unthinkable here. Alistair Campbell — the communications director for former prime minister Tony Blair — may have captured social reality in Great Britain when he told a Vanity Fair reporter that “we don’t do God,” but that’s not America. Here, one popular diagnosis of the 2004 elections was that the Democrats lost in part because they didn’t “do God” credibly.

As the distinguished sociologist Peter Berger puts it, the United States is “a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes.” India is one of the world’s most intensely religious societies, while few places on earth are as ultra-secular as today’s Sweden.

From National Catholic Reporter*, a terribly liberal paper which happens to have a very informed reporter in John Allen.

*CORRECTION: When this post first appeared, I mistakenly wrote “National Catholic Register” rather than “Reporter.” The two papers are quite different, and the National Catholic Register’s editorial policy cannot be described at all in the same terms as the Reporter’s. My apologies to the Register!