kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca:
> I wouldn't say uniquely, but certainly the US, in general, is one of the more
> fundamentalist nations around. It probably has to do with the split face of the
> democratic ethos that serves as the constitutional ground. Religion is
> assumed to be true, with full authorial powers and legitimacy, but at the same
> time no legislation may be passed with direct appeal to "religious" reasoning
> (at least according to the books). ...
This doesn't explain. It would be easy enough to change the Constitution to establish a religion, which, if Americans were religious in the same sense as the populations of the Islamic states, they would surely do. Religion must function differently here.
I'm going to suggest that it's largely a species of entertainment, a participatory, vernacular art form. Additionally, in the case of fundamentalism it might offer lower-class traditionalists and nostalgics relief from bourgeois cultural pressures and continuous modernization. It asks mostly to be decor; hence the uncomprehending offense taken when even vague, pro-forma religious expressions are kicked out of school, even from the important sentimental apparatus of football games and graduations.