What's going on right now makes a lot more sense when you consider that what's now the US was populated not so much by people of English descent, but specifically super religious Protestants who were often causing trouble.

Part of the solution to Europe's wars of religion was to pack off some of the most swivel-eyed ones to the new world to let them build their New Jerusalem there, and it worked for a bit

Even as an American reading some diaries of English colonists provided a lot of insight into the culture to this day.

I remember one where a man decided to move to America to escape religious persecution. Of course said religious persecution was his neighbors laughing and dancing and enjoying themselves.

It often gets somewhat glossed over in modern secular readings of history but the Protestant Reformation is one of the most important events in European (and Western more broadly) history.

We're still feeling the reverberations of Martin Luther (allegedly) nailing his theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg today