The stereotype—and the question
When I told my mom I was moving to Germany, the first thing she said was, “Oh, Michael, the churches in Europe are dead.” Now it didn’t matter if she had never been to Europe, because it illustrates well the stereotypes some Americans have of Europe. And it also might justify the stereotype Europeans have of Americans: that we are all deeply religious and speak about it wherever we go in public.
So, at the beginning, I won’t bury the lede, as we say in English. That is, I won’t wait until the end to say the most interesting or obvious thing. To put it bluntly, yes, I would argue that Americans are more religious than Europeans. What is 100 percent certain is that American Christianity is quite different from the Christianity that I’ve seen practiced in Germany.
The question then becomes, but how is it different? And why?
In today’s episode of English, Naturally, I will attempt to answer both of these questions.