THE WAY WE WEREN'T: RELIGION IN COLONIAL AMERICA - The Washington Post
THE WAY WE WEREN'T: RELIGION IN COLONIAL AMERICA - The Washington PostIn 1776, only about 17 percent of the country were church members, compared to about 65 percent today, said Stark, who has tallied church membership as a percentage of the population over the past 250 years using church records and census figures.
Even in the populated cities and towns, colonial Americans were not particularly religious. "It's safe to say that most people walking around had some nebulous notion of God even though they had never been in a church and were just vaguely Christian -- nobody had ever instructed them."
Why didn't early Americans go to church? Part of the reason is that most of America even in the 18th century was still untamed frontier filled with untamed frontiersmen who preferred drinking and wenching to tithing and praying.
Women, churches and schools came later. Even by the first U.S. Census in 1790, men still significantly outnumbered women in the United States and its colonies, Stark reported in his book, "The Churching of America," which he wrote with Purdue sociologist Roger Finke.
Besides, congregations need clergy to lead them, and men of the cloth were in short supply in colonial America. What few there were left much to be desired: Many had fled from Europe or Scandinavia to escape debts, scandal or unhappy marriages. "Why else would you want to leave Norway or Germany?" Stark said. And once here, these scoundrels continued their dissolute ways. "The clergy was pretty notorious."
Church Membership In America Percentage of population that belongs to a church:
1776 17%
1850 34
1860 37
1870 35
1890 45
1906 51
1916 53
1926 56
1952 59
1980 62
1995 65
* *Estimated. Source: "The Churching of America: 1776-1990" by Roger Finke and Rodney Stark and Gallup Organization data. Don't Call Me Raoul