>Gordon wrote:
>
>>in the
>>case of fundamentalism it might offer lower-class traditionalists
>>and nostalgics relief from bourgeois cultural pressures and
>>continuous modernization.
>
>Margaret Talbot, "A Mighty Fortress," New York Times Sunday Magazine
>27 February 2000 (p. 40):
>
>***** The re-emergence of a Christian right in the mid-80's took no
>one by greater surprise than the liberal academics and journalists
>who were frequently called upon to account for itŠ.As a result, much
>of the commentary on conservative Christians has tended to portray
>themŠ"as a group somehow left behind by the modern world -
>economically, culturally, psychologicallyŠ.
>
>The trouble with this theory of "status discontent" - of
>conservative Christians as downwardly mobile rubes - was that most
>of them were neitherŠ.Of all these groups [evangelicals, liberal
>Protestants, Catholics, and nonreligious] evangelicals are the least
>likely to have had only a high school education or less. They are
>more likely than liberals or the nonreligious to belong to
>$50,000-and-above income bracket. And they are no more likely to
>live in rural areas than anyone else; the new centers of
>conservative Christianity, it turns out, are the prosperous suburbs
>in Midwestern states like Kansas and Oklahoma. *****
A few years ago, Marc Cooper had an article in the Nation about Colorado Springs, home to lots of fundamentalist organizations, and to lots of fundamentalists. He argued that the base of their support was corporate nomads - people who were transferred every few years, moving about, never settling anywhere. Religion was an antidote to their alienation.
Doug