ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the apparent denominational differences in religious stories between Catholics and Protestants and whether these might be related to traditional sociological notions about the communitarian ethos of Catholics and the individualist ethos of Protestants. It proposes to test the expectations described in previous paragraphs against data collected in the European Values Study (EVSS). In the EVSS data, Catholic willingness to resist oppression was indeed stronger than Protestant. Analysis of International Social Survey Project data, then, neatly replicates the analysis of the EVSS data. The higher suicide rates and the higher achievement rates of Protestants in turn-of-the-century Europe are the result ultimately of different symbol systems, or, if one may say it, different—though not totally different—stories of God. The English-speaking findings then provide a useful road map for a tour of the Continent, but part of the map applies in Holland and a different part applies in the Federal Republic.
