Colonial America Was Not That Religious
Many Americans, particularly those who preach on television, argue that the United States has forsaken the religious commitment of its forefathers for the easy pleasures of sin, sloth and televised professional sports.
Actually, many social scientists and historians argue that America has never been more church-going than it is right now. Our history books may be cluttered with images of pious Puritans gathering for the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, the first potluck social and the like. But most Colonial Americans probably were more likely to be found in the local tavern on Saturday night than in church on Sunday, said Rodney Stark, professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington.
In 1776, only about 17 percent of the country were church members, compared with about 65 percent today, said Stark, who has tallied church membership as a percentage of the population over the past 250 years using church records and census figures.
Even in the populated cities and towns, Colonial Americans were not particularly religious. Its safe to say that most people walking around had some nebulous notion of God even though they had never been in a church and were just vaguely Christian - nobody had ever instructed them.
Why didn’t early Americans go to church? Part of the reason is that most of America, even in the 18th century, was still untamed frontier filled with untamed frontiersmen who preferred drinking and wenching to tithing and praying.
Women, churches and schools came later. Even by the first U.S. Census in 1790, men still significantly outnumbered women in the United States and its colonies, Stark reported in his book, “The Churching of America,” which he wrote with Purdue sociologist Roger Finke.
Besides, congregations need clergy to lead them, and men of the cloth were in short supply in Colonial America. What few there were left much to be desired: Many had fled from Europe or Scandinavia to escape debts, scandal or unhappy marriages. Why else would you want to leave Norway or Germany? Stark said. And once here, these scoundrels continued their dissolute ways. The clergy was pretty notorious.
Actually, America today is one of the most church-going countries in the Western world. Only about 20 percent of the British are members of the Church of England, Stark reports. In Scandinavia, church membership is measured in single-digit percentiles.
In those countries, state and religion have merged much to the detriment of religion. In many European countries, the clergy are bureaucrats paid by the federal government, Stark said, and many citizens have precisely the same low regard for the state church that Newt Gingrich has, say, for the Department of Commerce.
The result, according to Stark: a dominant but stagnant state church that stifles the growth of other denominations. Its like South America: Everybodys Catholic but nobody goes to church.
In contrast, Stark said, America is a veritable smorgasbord of religious denominations, and competition among these faiths for adherents keeps church membership here high and rising.
xxxx CHURCH MEMBERSHIP IN AMERICA Percentage of the population that belongs to a church: 1776 - 17% 1850 - 34% 1870 - 35% 1906 - 51% 1926 - 56% 1952 - 59% 1980 - 62% 1995 - 65%* *Estimated: Source: “The Churching of America: 1776-1990” by Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, and Gallup Organization data.