A provocative graph from the Pew Global Attitudes Project, showing the correlation between a country’s wealth and general religiousity:
From the report summary:
The survey finds a strong relationship between a country’s religiosity and its economic status. In poorer nations, religion remains central to the lives of individuals, while secular perspectives are more common in richer nations. This relationship generally is consistent across regions and countries, although there are some exceptions, including most notably the United States, which is a much more religious country than its level of prosperity would indicate. Other nations deviate from the pattern as well, including the oil-rich, predominantly Muslim—and very religious—kingdom of Kuwait.
(Note that religiousity in this case is defined as believing that morality is not achievable without the existence of God, so it encompasses a lot more than just Christian belief.)
Jesus’ words about rich men, camels, and the kingdom of Heaven spring to mind. Are you surprised by the survey’s implication that the wealthier a nation is, the less religious it is likely to be? And what do you think about the United States’ apparent bucking of this trend?
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December 4, 2007 at 13:24
I’d like to see a breakdown of the U.S. numbers.
I’d guess that “religiosity” and wealth within the US are a similar curve to this.
The problem is that the massive wealth of the top 10% pushes the US up the graph above. I’d theorize that the poorer regions are far more “religious” and the richer regions, while skewing the income data, don’t add much on the religiosity scale.
Just a thought.
It’s either that or the fact that the shallowness of North American Christianity allows them to consider themselves religious and still be wealthy. Note that this isn’t a measure of what’s in the heart, it’s a measure of what the respondent says or thinks is in his heart.
December 4, 2007 at 14:12
I disagree. The graph shows the Gross Domestic Product, in otherwords how much is being made, not how we spend our money. The United States is the only country ever to be founded on the belief in God. We also have mure churches per capita than anywhere in western Europe, our nearest economical neighbors. Out of curiosity, though, I would like to know just how religiosity is measured.
December 4, 2007 at 14:13
I think the question of why the U.S. seem to buck the trend is easily answered.
A lot of what we’ve been looking at lately in this blog seems to converge on the question of “What is Christianity?”. That question is always worth examining and it should be the easiest question to answer. Our faith is all supposed to center around the person and work of Christ. If there is any confusion about who Christ is and what His work is
-and I think most of us agree that there is much confusion about Him- then the problem seems to be the idea that He can be anybody you want Him to be. The popular notion in America is that the Bible isn’t reliable, so we’re free to call ourselves Christians and believe whatever we want.Mega-church pastors are free to preach a distorted and lop-sided view of Christ and the people slurp it up like gravy. A comment from one so-called brother sticks in my mind. In defending one of the prosperity mega-church preachers he said something like, “What does it matter if Satan himself brings people to Christ as long as that is what he is doing?”. I didn’t see anyone challenge that. And I must confess that I decided not to address it, because people here already tend to think I’m too salty.
But let me challenge that right here. Brother, if that is your view of Christ and Satan, then you don’t know either one. Jesus Christ doesn’t need the Father of Lies to bring anyone to Him. That’s not something that Satan is going to do anyhow. All of that just goes to show how ridiculously skewed Christianity has become in America.
See the Christian Post article entitled “2007 Trends Analysis: Americans Reformulating Christianity”. Americans have an odd view of Christ and what it means to be Christian! That is what happens when people turn their backs on God and the Holy Bible.
December 4, 2007 at 14:25
Great point on the skewed US numbers MrPages. Although, I wonder if all countries would have the same division of wealth and religiosity problems. It would be an interesting thing to see the same graph in country.
Also, just another thing to think about, even if the GDP for the US was half what it is, we’d still be above the curve.
December 5, 2007 at 08:01
Jesus addresses wealth and entrance into heaven. There is a definate relationship. However, there are both wealthy and poor people who place high value on Christianity. There are leaders of mega churches of thousands and leaders of small churches of a few hundred who place primary emphases on teaching people to study the Bible and value the place of prayer in the body of Christ. I have lived in the midwest/southwest all my life until recently where I currently live in New York City. The depth of committment to spread the gospel and make disciples is incredible in the secular-humanistic city of New York. There may be fewer of us in Europe and United States but Jesus only used 12 to turn the world upside down! Our responsibility is to “keep up the good work.”
December 5, 2007 at 10:24
“The United States is the only country ever to be founded on the belief in God.”
Quite a bold statement, especially when one thinks of the Islamic countries in the Middle East or the Jewish nation of Israel or even Vatican City. The U.S. was founded as a secular country. We do not have an official religion, many other countries do.
December 5, 2007 at 12:01
Ahh, statistics. We either love them or hate them. in this case, I would say it is too hard to tell since most people call themselves Christians in the US. However, the love of money has always been a distracting force for faith. I don’t have a problem with money itself, I just think that when we become so obsessed with getting it, we start loving it with all of our mind, heart and strength and will do anything to obtain it. I wish that “christian” American will use that same passion to seek Christ.
December 6, 2007 at 09:19
Isn’t this whole question sort of missing the point? In the Bible God used both the poor and wealthy to serve his purposes. What mattered most was their faith not their wealth or lack of it. I Timothy 6:9-11 warns us the “the love of money” is the cause of the evil associated with money (KJV, NIV, NASB) and Hebrews 13:4-6 advises us to keep ourselves free from “the love of money” (NIV, NASB). To me that means that our first job is to work on the content of our own hearts. Perhaps a better question is what is God expecting me to do with the gifts He has given in order to best honor Him regardless of whether I live in a wealthy or poor country or coummunity?
December 6, 2007 at 22:46
The graph is all wrong because true wealth is found in the blessings of God. The more we depend on God the more we are blessed.Love of money drifts us from God because we lose the ability to depend on God.
So are you rich or poor in Christ?