>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....
You might write and challenge Margaret Talbot to produce her sources. She may be indeed producing numbers out of thin air, as you suspect. On the other hand, if based upon a credible study, it challenges conventional wisdom.
>I also know that, as you might put it, LBO-talkers wouldn't know what to do
>if religion wasn't around
Very insightful of you. The topic of religion does appear much more often on LBO-talk than M-Fem, Marxism, PEN-L, H-Labor, Engrad, E-Grad, SERJ, & Leninist-International (the lists to which I'm subbed).
>Othering Christians allows them to show their
>enlightenment and provides an omnipresent boogeyman for what's wrong with
>this, er, God-forsaken society
It appears that replying to my posts allows you to do the same. I'm delighted to be of service. :)
Yoshie