Latvian blogger Peteris Cedrins has added an extensive comment to an earlier post here in which we touched on religion in Latvia. Peteris confirms our suspicion that statements like Hutcherson's that "Latvia is a Christian nation" are more aspirational than factual. Given the interference of our local preacher in Latvian politics, Cedrins' comment deserves to be brought up here to the top. [We apologize that the Blogger software that we use in the background for this blog can't handle the diacritical marks that are used on most Latvian names, including Cedrins'.]
by Peteris Cedrins
Detailed information on religion in Europe is available as a .pdf file from Eurobarometer. The chart there shows that 37% of respondents in Latvia choose "I believe there is a God" (in a multiple choice that included "I believe there is some sort of spirit or life force," 49%) -- that makes Latvia less religious than the UK (god -- 38%), and the UK is not considered especially religious. The least religious country in Europe is our northern neighbor, Estonia (God -- 16%). Mostly Catholic Lithuania -- 49%, Poland 80% (in that case we are probably seeing the effects of the Soviet occupation...).
The numbers among our neighbors point to our betweenness, as so often, and I do wish Eurobarometer would detail ethnicity/citizenship/region. Historically, Latvia was primarily Lutheran except for the eastern province of Latgallia, which was long a part of Poland and then Russia proper (i.e., not part of the Baltic Provinces which included Estonia and most of Latvia). Today, depending upon which numbers one believes, Lutherans, Catholics, and Orthodox are about equal (there's also a thriving minority of Old Believers, but the historically important Jewish minority was all but annihilated during the Nazi phase of the occupation).
Latvian nationalism was quite strongly anti-clerical, for the most part, from its inception in the 19th C -- the pastors were seen as agents of the hated Baltic German nobility. The Moravian Brethren, however, were instrumental in spreading literacy (by comparison to the rest of the Russian Empire and even to the West, it was very high here early on, in part due to home schooling) and ideas of equality. Then came socialism, exceedingly popular here in the late 19th and early 20th C, and obviously opposed to religion.
The Soviet occupation saw a shift -- religion was a means of resistance. The hierarchy is now fiercely conservative, however. Under the Soviets, the Lutherans ordained women. They no longer do that, and Archbishop Vanags has associated the Church with the Missouri Synod (which even complained about the women previously ordained...). The Catholic Cardinal Pujats, appointed in pectore by John Paul II, has contributed homophobic material to a small and venomously radical grouping led by Aivars Garda (Garda is a follower of Roerich's theosophical school, curiously enough -- though the Roerich Society has disassociated itself from him).
In Estonia, the Russian minority is reportedly more religious than the rather atheistic ethnic Estonians are. I believe that's true here, too, though I haven't any data to prove it.
It is hard to gauge how much religion in Latvia is merely formal. There is, however, not a little resentment towards the churches -- Archbishop Vanags' refusal to participate in ecumenical Independence Day services until various questions about the return of Church property were settled and until he was listened to re abortion (he wasn't) was widely remarked. The Government's use of large amounts of taxpayer money for the Pope's visit was not well received by many. Catholic dealings in Aglona, where they reclaimed a boarding school, caused a furore, and the "return" of Saint Peter's Church in our capital, despite the fact that the Lutherans haven't the money to support the major churches they do have, did not bring them much affection.
Hard, too, to measure the depth of the veneer -- the major holiday in this country is the summer solstice. This was the last part of Europe to be Chrisitianized -- Palanga, now in Lithuania, had a continuous female priesthood until the late 19th C, and paganism persisted in the less accessible parts of Latgallia into the 1930s. Latvian culture is rooted in the dainas, hundreds of thousands of folk songs.
Hard to measure what's Soviet, or totalitarian -- my wife's former atheism teacher, who tried to get her thrown out of school for sneering in Marxism class, became the head of the Department of Religious Affairs and denied a visa to the Dalai Lama. He easily morphed from orthodox Communism to hardcore Catholicism. Many others enjoyed such a metamorphosis.
Finally, here's a very interesting take on religious stats -- note where Latvia falls in Carlos' estimation... As you suggested, the USA is far more "Christian" than Latvia is -- up there with Malta, the most religious country in Europe.
[Update: As me mentions in a comment [to the original post on ttca.org], Peteris has added much more about this "burgeoning bilateral trade in excrement" in a new post on his blog. The post is especially informative about how LPP -- the Latvian party with which Hutcherson and his American partner in bigotry, Scott Lively, have aligned themselves -- uses homophobia to empower its broader political goals. Unfortunately, those tactics also copy and echo too much in recent US politics.]