Church in England

In England, church is an intellectual exercise. Thinking is actually encouraged in sermons, with frequent admissions that the preacher does not know all the answers, and thus encourages everyone to ponder the issue at hand. Logic lessons (most recently, on false dichotomies) are also frequent features. This stands in very nice contrast to frequent sermons in the US (especially in Baptist churches) which are frequently just lectures on the way things "are," not why (and certainly not admissions that the preacher doesn't know the answer on a given subject).

I find I prefer it this way. Perhaps it's my being intellectual; perhaps it's my sincere desire to believe that Richard Dawkins is flat wrong (he says "Thinking is anethema to religion"), but it's nice to be able to think about religious issues without being smacked down by those you try to discuss with. And it's not confined to churches, either; the Exeter (University) Evangelical Christian Union frequently discusses philosophical issues in an intellectual way, which is also quite nice. I can't say that this is a European thing, because I went to a very American church in Germany (because my German wasn't good enough to go to a German one), but it's something that I approve of!