The religious history of Christianity the US is a long and proud tradition of people who have a "personal relationship with Jesus" and little or no knowledge of the Bible or the practices or a particular Church.
There's also the American tradition of holding X, Y, or Z religion because that's what your parents were, or that's what your spouse is. It isn't even a matter of selection, just taking the path of least resistance. With that tradition, it's easy to limit your religious education to "just enough to get by" and then forget even that much. (Which isn't, of course, to say that all people do that. Just that it's very easy to go that route if you want to.)
There's also the American tradition of holding X, Y, or Z religion because that's what your parents were, or that's what your spouse is.
That's true of all cultures and all religions.
eta: At least for the 'parents' part.
Link to the Pew online quiz about religion.
Fair point, tommy.
Must think this through further.
The religious history of Christianity the US is a long and proud tradition of people who have a "personal relationship with Jesus" and little or no knowledge of the Bible or the practices or a particular Church.
This is very true. An overwhelming number of Americans believe in God (something like 90%), but they don't necessarily identify with a religion, whereas in a place like France, an overwhelming number of people will self-identify as Catholic but claim not to believe in God.
in a place like France, an overwhelming number of people will self-identify as Catholic but claim not to believe in God.
So it's more of a cultural marker, then?
There's also the American tradition of holding X, Y, or Z religion because that's what your parents were, or that's what your spouse is. It isn't even a matter of selection, just taking the path of least resistance.
What makes American Christians unusual is that this is much less true here than in Europe (where people tend to belong to the state church by default but not actually give a crap about it). Having no state religion has led to a culture in which people take their religion much more seriously. (The theory I've read regarding this is that people don't tend to respect or trust their governments. So if the government is also the church, this leads to an eventual decline in religiousity. This never happened in the US.)
Yeah, the Pew online quiz isn't loading for me, either. Maybe it got bOING bOINGed?
Another tornado watch for NYC!
The quiz loaded fine for me. 15/15, btw.
Yikes on tornados!
