Well, yes, because small towns were the norm, not cities, and the Church was not just the centrepiece of the town, it was also how people got together and socialized once a week. Even when it came to cities, you had your neighbourhood churches/"parishes". Even if you didn't give a shit about the stories, old people liked to see their friends, and as a kid you got brunch and maybe a drive out in the country afterwards.

But as cities grew, and became more "diverse", that started to break up once you have different "denominations", never mind religions.

As it is, we used to more or less know the same books, and watch the same movies and TV shows. The very forces that want to homogenize humanity is causing it to fracture even more than might have happened naturally. We don't have to watch Hollywoke propaganda, we can watch something else instead, maybe made by some nobody somewhere no one knows.