When I grew up in Sweden in the 80's, I was a member of the state church despite not being baptized, because it was the state church, and my parents were members, so I was automatically added.

Almost everyone of my classmates were baptized and later confirmed. Everyone went to weddings and funerals in church. The school semester ending gatherings were held in church, we sung psalms, a priest read the christmas gospel if it was christmas, and something lighter if it was summer. Some would wear a cross necklace. If you asked people if they were christian, most would say "yes".

But noone was a believer. None of my classmates were christians. Almost none of their parents were. Yet to a casual observer, it would have appeared we were all good christian children. And since almost everyone was a member of the church, the official statistics backed it up. From the outside, you would have to poke pretty hard to figure out that no, none of these people are actually christian.

And it seems like the guy in the article isn't poking hard enough. He just sees religious activity, and immediately equates that with religious belief. Why would people go to church if they're not religious?

Why, indeed?

It seriously depends on the religion whether the "believer" concept really makes sense. Believer in Christianity is meant to express a trust in God, faith in a very personal sense. Despite this being the intention, I would argue that it's not true for a great many Christians who instead want to feel like they belong in the social setting built up for & by and surrounding the Church.

The concepts of belief in most other religions are very different. Nobody in Egypt will tell you that they have trust in Allah to heal them and keep them healthy, just that they live in muslim country, the way "you live in the USA", and that the laws are what matters. Ignoring the religion is borderline acceptable (IF you're male), going against it is like what I imagine being a dissident in China is like. While they're probably not going to kill you at the first sign, society and the state will attack you in small ways, and then build up. It is not out of the question that they'll eventually kill you for it. Nobody, and I mean nobody on this planet believes Allah will protect them from illnesses if they eat halal food. But there is a clear threat, at the forefront of everyone's mind, that is keeping muslims in Egypt islamic. They don't see this as a problem, after all, any other state is no different, right ?

I agree with a lot of what you said, but I'm not sure about the "looked down upon" part.

My impression is that the sentiment is more typically one of concern and/or alarm. It's a concern that these "cultural" Christians are deceiving themselves about following Jesus, and are therefore at significant risk of not having eternal life.

I think what many of these evangelicals find particularly vexing is that they don't know how to reach out to these "cultural" Christians without so offending them as to make them permanently unreceptive to the discussion.

I've wondered sometimes if a big reason adherents of a particular religion feel threatened by encountering those of other religions, is that forces them to confront their own doubts about their own religion's veracity. If one's sense of eternal wellbeing is hinged on having chosen correctly, I would imagine that's a terrifying thought.

That isn't just Protestants. Happens in both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

I'd reckon this is a fairly common thing.