>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. *****
I remember this awful article. It purported that Christians were increasingly and drastically isolating themselves from the larger culture. Unfortunately, the writer stated only one (rather vague and unsourced) demographic stat in support of this "trend," and her interview sample was 1 family (the mother of which she met in a chatroom--how's that for detachment from contemp culture!). She also didn't bother to define "evangelical" or where she got the numbers for her nifty little divisions (evangelical, liberal Protestants, Catholics, nonreligious). And those are just her objective sins: The tone of the piece was that of the enlightened liberal who's shocked at the withdrawal--imagine, kids that don't know what a Pokemon is!--and a little afraid that her way of life is being invaded by the home-schooling heathens. Though she tried to show some empathy with the family, it was a purely pro forma attempt.
I know what you are trying to do here, Yoshie: show that it's not the heroic poor and working class but the benighted middle and upper-middle classes who are entranced by religion. Which is fine, of course--if it's true. And it might be, but I wouldn't go around quoting hack reporters and phoned-in articles in support of your belief.
I also know that, as you might put it, LBO-talkers wouldn't know what to do if religion wasn't around; Othering Christians allows them to show their enlightenment and provides an omnipresent boogeyman for what's wrong with this, er, God-forsaken society. Undifferentiating attacks on religion are also an assault on people like Ken, Kelley, me, etc., who are trying to understand belief and religion. [rest of performance deleted]
Eric