In two-and-a-half years here in the US, it has been always apparent to me that New Zealand and America have vastly different religious cultures.

To illustrate this, let me begin by asking you a question.

Does John Key believe in God?

I'd never once heard him talk about his religion and I'd never once cared enough to research his views. It makes me feel good, whatever you want to make of that, that religious belief is not a qualifying statement for people aspiring to high office in New Zealand.

A little reading on this subject later, it turns out that the answer is a resounding "not really". From a 2007 NZ Herald profile of Key, I found this quote:

"I mean I go to church a lot with the kids, but I wouldn't describe it as something that I ... I'm not a heavy believer; my mother was Jewish, which technically makes me Jewish. Yeah, I probably see it in a slightly more relaxed way."



In America this 46-word soundbite would be akin to political suicide. In New Zealand, it barely rates as news.

I never pegged Barack Obama as being deeply rooted to any particular religious belief, based on various policies and because he makes little public reference to the church, yet he always professes his faith when pushed in unequivocal, impossible to misinterpret terms.

From a 2008 interview in Christianity Today: "I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life."

This cultural difference doesn't so much jump out at you as slowly reveal itself over time. For me, it is most apparent in the attitudes of younger generations of Americans and New Zealanders to religion.

In the United States, among the people I know well under the age of 35, I could name four times as many people who subscribe to some level of religious belief and affiliation (from casual to a bit more devout) as I could in New Zealand. I have no religious inkling and (not by design) have never befriended any New Zealander my own age who subscribed to any religious routine. A friend of mine became devoutly Christian after university and among our circle it was a much-discussed development.

There's a tonal difference in the conversations about religion that take place among younger people in the US and New Zealand: people at home have a habit of being dismissive and derisive of religious concerns - I suspect that many people regard it as anti-intellectual. In America, people refrain from embedding subtext into the religious conversation, because you never know what the person you're talking to thinks. In New Zealand with less religious involvement, especially among younger people, there's a bit more safety that the person you're talking to probably thinks as you do.

But outside of just people my age, on a wider, cross-societal level, I'm still much more aware of religion in America than I ever have been in New Zealand.

There is a lot of solid data and research to back these personal experiences up. A recent poll by UMR Research in New Zealand saw 61 per cent of respondents, with varying degrees of certainty, professing belief that there is a God. According to the 2006 census 56 per cent of New Zealanders align themselves with some sort of Christian faith (which had fallen by 5 per cent since the 2001 census).

The gulf between this and similar American inquiries is large. A 2011 Gallup survey found that 92 per cent of Americans still claimed to believe in God. That number is so staggeringly high I almost don't believe it. The American Religious Identification Survey, which was last conducted in 2008, surveying 40,000 households, reported that 76 per cent of Americans identified as being some variety of Christian.

Yet, when that last survey was released, the media hook seems to have focused on the 15 per cent of the country professing to have no religion. (The last completed census in NZ put that same figure at 34.7 per cent.)

It goes on. A Pew survey last year said that almost half of all Americans attend church each week. Similar surveys in New Zealand put that figure around 15 per cent.

I'm going to extrapolate less on this subject than I might ordinarily. I don't want to affix value statements to either way of life. Religion has played little role in my life, but I have few strong opinions toward the institution itself.

The church in America is a much more powerful presence in public discourse in America, to both good and very bad ends.

It is just interesting to think about. Why don't New Zealanders believe in God in such numbers? Why don't we need religion as much?

I think this different religious culture plays itself out to different ends; for instance, in New Zealand there is less threat to the separation of church and state, but we are overall a less philanthropic country than America.

But how do you feel about it? And what do you attribute this difference to?

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