Mind The Gap: Religion and the Crucible of Marginality in the United States and Great Britain

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Comparisons between the United States and Great Britain reveal many similarities in broad-based religious concerns and values. Nonetheless, surveys over the last 40 years document a widening gap between the two countries in individual-level religious commitment. This article suggests that the residual effect of prior marginalization of certain groups and the way they responded to the crucible of marginality is a critical variable to consider. The structure of the religious market in Great Britain kept peripheral groups from turning to religion for support or encouragement in their resistance to the establishment; this, however, was not the case in the religious economy of the United States. Using data collected in the most recent wave of the World Values Survey, I show that higher levels of religious commitment among particular groups with a history of marginalized status—namely African Americans and Southerners—in the United States and the lack of similar levels among similar groups in the British context—ethnic minorities and residents of Scotland and Wales—explain part of the gap in religious commitment between the two countries.