I'm from Toronto (Canada), and it would be a bit weird for someone in my social group to just offer "I'm a Christian" except in response to "What's your religion?". It seems that in a lot of the US "I'm a Christian" is short-hand for "I'm a Christian Fundamentalist."
I think the reason all Christian's have been lumped together is US Politics. Candidates want to show they believe in God but don't want to side with any particular faith and therefore use the Christian moniker..
Then, when they win, say, a House seat on the strength of a single district (a small part of a single state), they automatically have a national platform they can parlay into a global platform if they say something batshit crazy enough, thanks to the global 24-hour news cycle and the endless linking and repetition in the blogosphere.
It's a classic case of a very loud minority making the uncritical thinkers of the world believe "They're all like that".
According to the latest Gallup poll, 46% of Americans are sufficiently fundamentalist (christian or otherwise) that they believe that "God created humans in present form".
32% think that "Humans evolved, with God guiding", which is still a lot of the religious in America, but far fewer than many seem to expect. Fewer than those who reject evolution completely.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intel...
To describe fundamentalism as modern is flat-out bizarre.
Anyway, there's also a difference, in my opinion, between the more fuzzy term "very young" and the more concrete term "13 years old".
For instance, consider the depictions of Mary throughout the centuries. In most, Mary is depicted to look like a young woman, but not as a 13 year old kid. I guess, a comparison of the different Bible translations could also produce some evidence. In general, more literal minded Christians seem to prefer ignorance about many details discovered by scholars in the last 100 years or so.
Another indicator is the look of actresses playing Mary in movies and documentaries [1]. More "realistically looking" actresses appear only rather recently, for instance in BBC1's 'Nativity' [2]. Still, even the young actresses act mature; for instance, in this short clip from the U.S. TV series "The Bible" [3]. Whether maturity can be expected in such a culture is open to debate, of course, but I have my doubts.
[1] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/filmchat/2006/09/who-is-the-you... [2] http://biblefilms.blogspot.de/2006/05/script-review-for-nati... [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwqt8_Vz-JY
In quite a large number, Mary looks like a woman of young-but-marriageable age of either the same culture/ethnicity of the place where the depiction was made or one idealized there.
> Still, even the young actresses act mature
Which, given the depiction of Mary in the Bible, is unsurprising; even if social context didn't play a role (along with brain development) in maturation, it would be inconsistent with the source material to depict Mary as typical of her age.
I see you must be talking more about the crazy Christians you have in the US though.
