they's call themselves "jiss christians" 'roun here honey chile. annoys the cotton-picken hell outta me, too Rob. (before anyone gets antsy that i'm mocking southerners. i'm not. i'm mocking appalachians hicks with the lingo. i was/am one)
but there ya have it. i have tried to figure it out for a long while. never forget the first time someone told me that they were christian. maybe it was in class and we were talking about religion and a student responded to a query about her religion with "i'm a christian" so i set about trying to find out what denomination! methodist? baptist? seventh day? ha ha ha.
i would assume it's because the churches they attend are not affiliated with a denomination. it's the "the loaves and fishes church of christ" or somesuch. my only explanations is this: in the states there are a ton of different brands of baptist because, iirc, they often disagree (doctrinaire disagreement) the officials and so separate to form their own church. probably similar phenom here.
i don't know how much of it is an attempt to colonize christian as THE one right way to be a christian. it could be. that is what is at the heart of the dispute among baptists typically, as i understand it.
kelley, who was always very tolerant of religion and often a defender of the "religious" but when i moved south i got quite a bit less tolerant because people look askance at you for saying "crap" around here and it pissesmeoffgodamn son a bitcheffinshithole. :) (let's see if that'll pass thru flemings)