Do you have to be Christian to truly be American? One-third of people polled in the U.S. say yes
About one-third of all Americans think you have to be a Christian to truly be an American — despite the history of religious pluralism that dates back to the nation’s very earliest days.
In a timely survey released Wednesday, just as the United States is debating the merits of suspending immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, the Pew Research Center asked residents of numerous nations what it takes to truly belong in their countries. Americans were far more likely than residents of other countries included in the survey to say that religion was key to sharing in the national identity.
Thirty-two per cent of Ameri- cans said one should be Christian to really be American, compared with just 15 per cent of Canadians, 15 per cent of Europeans and 13 per cent of Australians who felt the same way about belonging in their homelands.
The same number of Americans — 32 per cent — said being born in the United States is key to being an American. More Americans — 45 per cent — said that sharing “national customs and traditions” was important, and many more — 70 per cent — said being an American meant speaking English.
Religion was the only question on which Americans were an outlier. On birth, language and customs, America fell in line with other industrialized nations.
While religious minorities have lived in the United States since before the American Revolution — Thomas Jefferson defended the rights of Muslims and George Washington wrote a famous letter guaranteeing religious liberty to the Jews of Rhode Island — pastors and politicians alike have frequently described the United States as a “Christian nation.”
Republicans, who are themselves more likely to be Christian, said at a higher rate that one need be Christian to be American: 43 per cent compared with 29 per cent of Democrats and 26 per cent of independents.
One’s own religion and race also strongly affected the answers: Pew found that 57 per cent of white evangelical Protestants thought it was very important to be Christian
to be American, while 29 per cent of white mainline Protestants, 27 per cent of Catholics and just nine per cent of people unaffiliated with a faith felt the same way.
This opinion is apparently becoming much less popular with the younger generation of Americans, who are less likely to affiliate with a religion than generations before them. Among adults over 50, 44 per cent told Pew that being Christian was key to being American; among those younger than 35, 18 per cent said so.
In Sweden, where 73 per cent of the population is Protestant but many do not consider religion important in their lives, a mere seven per cent of respondents felt that one needs to be Christian to be a real Swede. The number was similarly low in several other European countries: eight per cent in the Netherlands, nine per cent in Spain, 10 per cent in France and 11 per cent in Germany.