Why do so many Americans go to church?

Because they believe in God? I dunno...?

Because their parents did.

I believe most Americans wouldn't bother with church if they couldn't go to a brunch place afterward.

I haven't been to church since my grandmother's funeral 4 years ago. And before that, I hadn't been for 6 years (except as a tourist, but that doesn't count).

I went to church yesterady to be a godfather to my neice. I'm glad hypocrisy doesn't turn your hair green.

Maybe the church still has some impact in terms of the social life of small towns? (Which I believe there are alot more of in the USA than over here)

Maybe because America doesn't have the deep roots and history that Britain and most of Europe has. So the church provides a kind of identity that would otherwise be lacking... possibly.

Maybe they're FUCKING MORONS.

Maybe they dont have the Royal Family and the thought of Prince Charles as the future head of your Church.

I get paid to go to church.

Because the church supplies them with THEIR CRACK.

Cause they aren't CoE which nearly encourages people not to go to church.

the church in america is sort of woven into the social fabric...it shapes social and political experiences and beliefs, in the south most notably. for a lot of american ancestors, religion was the reason they fled their home countries, so it's logical that it would continue to be important in their new country of america. different churches can have a huge impact on how people live their lives and what they believe (most annoying example-southern baptist convention eugh). religion is a pretty big part of one's identity, what sect of the protestant church you attend corresponds with your major beliefs. growing up, my parents brought me to a fairly liberal church but i haven't attended since starting university. i still feel like a prude compared to many britons/europeans i have met thus far. damn puritans.

Church attendance in Ulster and parts of Scotland is probably closer to the American figure. Non-conformist Protestant faiths usually have a different character than the CofE to which most English claim some nominal relationship. Plus if you're brought up attending a Church it oftens feel like the community to which you belong, an extension of your family, something you identify with even if you don't take the religion terribly seriously. It can have an important social function.

(The Pilgrim Fathers, escaping English persecution, first relocated to Leiden, The Netherlands, where i live. Alas they found Holland far too liberal - eg prostitutes touting for trade outside the local church - and thus eventually left for the New World.)

i go to church because i have friends there, also it gives me an hour break.

Mr Noodles: comedian Jeremy Hardy has a line about the Church of England - "Why not become an atheist, go the extra inch?"

It seems that most of the churches I've been to are filled with old widows and young families. Lots of non-churchgoers change their ways when the kids come along. They want to be a part of that whole 'family values' scene.

It's pretty much the only place people of all different generations mix and are really nice to each other, especially when in the suburbs neighbors move in and out constantly. Also I find the music and sermons comforting in some churches (the only churches I don't like are the ones that have bad hymns).

If we keep going to church God will keep making our country more powerful and important than yours.

Petty bastard, that god of yours.

Because they LIE to the census!!

Wait, you don't have to?!?!?

The biggest pitfall regarding America being so relijus is that Christian-owned Chik-Fil-A is closed on Sunday, and every time I think to myself that I'd like some Chik-Fil-A, it's Sunday.

no waffle fries on sunday is certainly a tragedy

This threatens the whole apres-church scene of eating your favourite version of Heart Attack On A Plate. I think Perkins' etc. would go out of business without churchgoing fat families' Sunday business.

Ah but Suzy - its never stopped us eating heart-attack-on-a-plate over here after drinking sclerosis-of-the-liver the night before whilst dancing to deafness-by-thirty in club high on premature-senile-dementia-in-tablet-form (wearing catch-the-death-of-cold-clothing before paying forty quid for a ride in a non-english-speaking-rape-mobile).

"It's pretty much the only place people of all different generations mix and are really nice to each other"

Unlike, say, an interweb message board. Ummm.

my impression is that being religious and going to Church/Synagogue/Sylvan Grove is one of the ways Americans create an identity for themselves. Those of us in old countries have no need of such things.

also, I think European countries tend to be more religiously homogenous, so if you get pissed off with your church you just stop being religious rather than switching to another.

Same goes for some new countries. Bugger-all people go to church here. I can safely say that I know no one who is a regular church goer. Or even a rare church goer. One of my great aunts used to go to church about 15 years ago. She calls the rest of us heathens, but in a nice way.

- Oh, except there's a guy at uni who is a bit suss, like he sends his kids to some freaky, small, religious school and he has rather a lot of kids so he might be a church goer.

I love hymns so I thought about going to church so I could sing hymns but I never get around to it - also, the religious people might talk to me and I wouldn't like that.

American churchgoers aren't all fat white Protestants in small towns. Close to a quarter of the US population is Catholic, and over 10% (maybe 15% if illegal immigrants are counted) are Hispanic. Hispanic Catholics tend to be relatively avid churchgoers. And blacks (close to 15%) tend to go to church regularly at a higher rate than whites.

I'd say the reasons given above-- small town social structure, and in that the brunch thing seems accurate to me) hold pretty well for white evangelicals, but it's easy, based on popular culture, to exaggerate the status of white protestantism as part of the US religious scene.

Another factor has got to be immigration -- find a church with a congregation of similar ethnic origin, and you've got a ready-made support system.

That was sort of directed to the points about small towns. I'd also tend to argue against the sense of history-- Latino Catholics attend churches at a high rate, and I wouldn't argue that they need the weight of a church to solidify their sense of identity.

Surely there are different reasons for the active churchgoing of these different groups that doesn't necessarily have to do with the USA per se. I lived in a small town in the south as a kid, and there was social pressure to attend church, be involved in youth groups, etc., and then, especially in evangelical churches, there's pressure on adherents to conform actively to the precepts of the church (being saved, testifying, and so on).

Many urban churches, or Catholic parishes in poorer neighborhoods, provide social services unavailable elsewhere. I guess part of this fits under the rubric of social structure, but in cities, things like inexpensive childcare are evidently much easier through churches.

(j.lu's post popped up, making the point about immigration, and I know that Catholic churches in New York provide a lot of services for immigrant parishioners)

And don't forget the extent to which the civil rights movement was religiously based (not to mention, going back 150 years, the abolitionist movement as well). It's not church exactly, but most organizations of nuns (I don't think they use the word convent anymore) are strongly feminist and very involved in social work.