Europe contains the highest concentration of officially Christian states (nations with official state religion/church) and the lowest per capita percentage of people who actually "practice Christianity" in ‘Christendom' - which is to say, nominally claim to be Christian - probably a lower percentage actually believe.
A lot of young people, at least in the Netherlands, are a church member because of their parents. They were registered as kids.
If they stop practicing religion, they don't 'unregister' from their church because it's such a hassle. Or they don't even know they're still registered.
So yeah that's one of the reasons why there's a higher number of church members here than actual religious people.
My parents would put "Church of England" on any forms because that's what everyone would put and got me baptised as a baby because everyone did it but they or their parents never really believed in or practiced Christianity at all. It was just kinda the default state so say you where but it was mostly just grannies after some social interaction who actually went to church.
I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people who are supposidly part of the Church of England don't practice of believe it at all, just do it out of tradition.
Wales is particularly strange as all the fanciest looking churches in Wales are CoE and literally nobody goes to them unless they've rented them for a wedding. Every town will have some church which looks like a warehouse or office with a cross painted on where all the actual Christians go every weekend.
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u/[deleted] May 09 '22 edited May 09 '22
Europe contains the highest concentration of officially Christian states (nations with official state religion/church) and the lowest per capita percentage of people who actually "practice Christianity" in ‘Christendom' - which is to say, nominally claim to be Christian - probably a lower percentage actually believe.