> Consider that the mainstay of virtually all pop culture are drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex, most or all of which are embraced by the “normal” characters but taboo among American Christians.
Leaving aside the question of whether those are the mainstays of popular culture (the traditional formulation would drop alcohol and add rock-and-roll), that seems...distorted.
While attitudes on some of those things differ between American Christians and the general public, it doesn't really seem at all defensible to claim that either drugs, alcohol, or premarital sex are “taboo” among America Christians, generally.
Those pew links are certainly surprising with respect to Christian tolerance for premarital sex, but with respect to alcohol I should have been more clear that I was talking about binge drinking. In whichever case, the fact that half of Christians disapprove of premarital sex still makes it unlikely that the default is Christian (especially considering I suspect those attitudes represent a relatively recent shift, probably due in large part to influence on Christian attitudes by pop culture for several decades).
Anecdotally, I also ran this past my wife and a few friends and the consensus was pretty unanimous that the default character since at least the early 90s was secular. I did a little Googling for something more authoritative but couldn't find anything. It's an interesting question in any case.
Leaving aside the question of whether those are the mainstays of popular culture (the traditional formulation would drop alcohol and add rock-and-roll), that seems...distorted.
While attitudes on some of those things differ between American Christians and the general public, it doesn't really seem at all defensible to claim that either drugs, alcohol, or premarital sex are “taboo” among America Christians, generally.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/31/half-of-u-s...
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/26/religious-a...
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/03/06/americans-d...