Jane Messina asks how you can ignore the 'Jesus talk' at a church wedding

After recently attending my very first Church of England wedding, politely keeping my head down during the many “Amens” and stories about Jesus turning water into wine (I’d love to get that recipe!), I expressed my surprise to my English officemates that my friend was “so religious”.

They looked at me confused. They explained that you don’t have to be a devout Christian to have a church wedding, and that it’s just something “people do” without really thinking about all the Jesus talk.

As someone who has not gone to a church service in 23 years, the Jesus talk was glaring. How can you “just ignore” it all? More importantly, why would you devote your marriage so strongly to something you don’t actually believe?

So to answer this question, I did what any good scientist would do — I Googled.

In a 2011 census, while 61 per cent of English people ticked a religious box when asked their religion, only 29 per cent of them responded “yes” when asked if they were religious.

A little more ‘interweb’ perusing told me that the same type of discrepancy exists in the US, but the gap is much narrower: a 2012 survey found 79 per cent of Americans affiliate themselves with a religion, with 67 per cent actually considering themselves religious.

So the first thing we can all agree on is that in either country, I’m in the minority as being unaffiliated with a religion. But only in the US am I the minority in actually being non-religious.

As an atheist, I’d love to spend another 20 pages or so going on about why the 67 per cent of Americans or 29 per cent of English people who are religious are mistaken in their beliefs.

But that’s not my point here, and there are plenty of books by Dawkins and Hitchens out there to keep you engaged in that topic (I prefer Ricky Gervais’s stand-up, personally).

My point is about the fact that the proportion of affiliated yet non-religious people in England is nearly three times that of the US.

But why?

While evangelism is actually on the decline in the States, you’ll still find a lot more people thinking they can speak in tongues across the pond (although I don’t suggest looking for them).

So is it the fact that England is much freer from the “born-again” constituency that they don’t feel the need to sway towards the other “extreme” (although I just call this being rational)?

As an unreligious person, it’s a lot more difficult to take a middle-of-the-road stance on religion in a country where Bible verses are sometimes used as justification for racism, homophobia, and misogyny.

But if more of y’all here in England are comfortable casually walking into a church and saying “I do” in front of God without thinking about what that actually means, then by all means, go ahead.

I can promise to nod and be polite at future church weddings despite my unease.

Just please, promise me there’s a free bar waiting at the end.