Quote:
Originally Posted by dark_crystal
I do not think progressive state people fully appreciate the influence religion has in the "heartland."
I am sure progressive state residents understand about fundamentalists and have seen JESUS CAMP and have run into Westboro and Operation Rescue at clinic defense, but all of that is kicked up about one thousand percent down here.
I do not think people who don't live/have not lived in the Bible Belt understand the intensity and ubiquity of some very extreme ideas, or the high degree of respect these ideas get even by people who don't practice them.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CherylNYC
I agree with much of what you say, dark crystal. In my experience, one of the biggest divides between the so-called coastal elites and the alleged heartland is around being comfortable speaking about faith. One of the reasons why Mayor Pete is gaining ground amongst improbable supporters is because he speaks simply and authentically about his own personal faith. His authenticity as a Christian is really quite compelling to many. When progressives expect others to stay away from speaking about their own faith they appear to be plugging up the fountain of comfort for everyone else, as if there's something about it that should embarrass them, and that drives Americans away in droves.
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C. Stroop: Escape from Jesus Land: On Recognizing Evangelical Abuse and Finding the Strength to Reject the Faith of Our Fathers
Filial duty–a concept that likely seems quaint to the majority of people familiar with the names of intellectuals like Lakoff and Haidt–is a hard thing to shake when you come from a patriarchal religious background. The extent to which family loyalty, and specifically loyalty to fathers, prevails in “flyover country,” and, indeed, wherever conservative Christian enclaves exist in America, may come as a shock to many people who grew up in liberal and/or “coastal elite” families, because, for them, it is simply very difficult to imagine.
Having grown up in a very conservative state in an evangelical enclave, I continue to be surprised precisely at how surprised many Americans are at the prevailing extremism that passes for “normal” in Jesus Land. As the reactions to the revival of the #ChristianAltFacts hashtag on Twitter and the personal experiences of many exvangelicals show, things that are “normal” for evangelicals can often be shocking to those who do not know much about the subculture we come from.
I think it’s important for liberal Americans who do not come from a patriarchal religious background to hear our stories and to sit with that shock. Why? Because I remain convinced that if American civil society and the American press fail to come to grips with just how radically theocratic the Christian Right is, any kind of post-Trump soft landing scenario in which American democracy recovers a healthy degree of functionality is highly unlikely.
To put it another way, you may not come from Jesus Land, USA, but Jesus Land is coming for you. We will all be subjected to theocratic dystopia, to “one kleptocracy under God,” if we don’t stop the Christian Right.
The Christian Right has been able to acquire massively disproportionate power in part because the press has allowed evangelicals’ slick, code switching PR spin doctors–such as the Southern Baptist Convention’s Russell “journalists never ask me about my view that feminism is a heresy” Moore–to frame the national discussion of evangelicalism. The result is that the readers of major news outlets are presented with an unrealistically benign picture of a darkly authoritarian, cult-like branch of Protestantism.
"major news outlets are presented with an unrealistically benign picture" is what stands out to me here.
Down here in the Bible Belt, esp. in the cities, there are huge numbers of people who nominally identify as Christians but don't go to church.
Those people also view religion as universally benign. Evangelicals-- especially the women-- have a very wide-eyed pose that tearfully whimpers "all we want to do is raise wholesome families and save little babies how could anyone possibly have a problem with that????" and their nominally-Christian-but-don't-attend-church neighbors are very impressed by that.
These people are even harder to reach than the die-hards, because they don't have a working knowledge of Scripture but do feel the cultural prohibition around poking at it. You can quote scripture at a die-hard and get a response, but quote scripture at the
nominally Christian and they just run away.
This is that "filial duty" Stroop mentions above. They don't know much of anything about their religion and they don't practice it but they're not about to question it. Not necessarily because they lack critical thinking skills in general, but because of "the extent to which family loyalty, and specifically loyalty to fathers, prevails"