Americans who attend church regularly are more likely to be devout than Europeans by a large percentage. What accounts for the difference?
The first reason is World Wars I and II. Those horrible experiences gave Europeans a more sober and pessimistic view of both human nature and religion. The number of European religious wars, especially since the Reformation, has also colored their view.
There has been an upsurge of attention to Americans' religious beliefs in the past few years, especially in regard to politics. Have there been other periods since 1776 when religion played such an important role in our national life?
America has had three periods of religious fervor. The first, called the Great Awakening, lasted from about 1700 to just before the Revolutionary War. It arose because most Americans came to this country for mercantile reasons - to grow tobacco and to make a new life. Except for the Puritans, they didn't bring a lot of clergy along. But a series of English preachers like George Whitefield traveled the country and gave great orations that awakened the people. A revival tradition began with them. Similar periods occurred in the early 1800s and then after the Civil War to World War I.
Some historians think we are in the middle of a fourth one now, one that began with the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell, and Ronald Reagan's presidency. The catalyst was Roe v. Wade, the decision in 1973 to legalize abortion. Other decisions had made conservative Christians unhappy, such as doing away with school prayer and Bible readings, but Roe v. Wade galvanized people. Reagan supported the evangelicals, which increased their enthusiasm, aided by the TV evangelism of Falwell, Pat Robertson, and others with a political agenda. We used to have tent revivals; now we have them in arenas, like the annual Harvest Crusade at Angel Stadium. They're quintessentially American; Europe has nothing like them.
