>I also grew up in the rural south (Mississippi) and your experience is
>completely the opposite of mine. I guess alot of it depends upon what you
>call "middle class". Middle class to me are not the poor whites who
>attend revivals, they are the ones who can afford a nice three bedroom
>home and own two cars -- nice cars. These were the base of the
>Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcolpalians, though not so much the
>Baptists. They would never go for the "rapture" and did not in
>experience, they would see it as un-intelligent babble.
>
>Marta
yes, you'd think. There was that old mainline divide. Not so in the new south and I'm sure elsewhere around the country. It's gratifying to trade notes with Deb because people from back home and from large urban centers just don't experience the same thing.
My son got into a ritzy ditzy school in the county, a place were the median family income is 90k (as compared to where we live where median is third of that, IRRC, and certainly higher than where we used to live where it was 25k). These people don't just have nice 3 bedrooms, they have 4-5 br, 3-5 cars (very high end cars, too, including Bentley's -- for the kids!), 3-4 car garages, you name it.
They don't go to mainline churches, the attend non-denominational churches mainly -- the "just christians" of which I've frequently written. Their's is not some "I'm spiritual, not religious" antipathy to established churches. Rather, they are "just christians" who attend evangelically-based/influenced churches.
These places are like circuses on Wed, Sat. and Sun. They are cram packed, not with affordable cars, but with high end vehicles: lexus, mercedes, etc. The people I meet at my son's school are professionals, managers, execs, prosperous small business owners, etc.
Deb's identifying a change that's been happening over the past 20 years, as churches reach out and appeal to this group. Women were the leading edge here, often turning to these churches to keep their marriages together (see Nancy Ammerman, _Bible Believers_ for instance.)
The Rapture stuff doesn't come up on my radar, but boy, did that piece about how they are all convinced that the founders were the same sort of Christians they were hit home. Boy, has that trope been firmly cemented into their minds.
I could go on, but Deb has done a good job of explaining how she sees it in Texas.
It has significant implications for many reasons. As Tommy pointed out, the churches are being used in a very serious way to propogate right wing agit prop. There was a show on it, locally, about all the reports of the churches being used -- big time -- to campaign for Bush and on single issues like anti-gay marriage ammendments, anti-abortion politics, etc. etc.
I've been meaning to scan a document that we rec'd recently. Oh. My. it was quite scary and really laid out their extreme antipathy to women. This was for an outfit pitching to an upscale audience, with lovely little getaway retreats for the whole famdamily.
I would say that it's not so much that people are atttracted to authoritarian politics, but that they are attracted to the sense of community and committment these places provide. It's social. They _like_ going to church on Wednesday. They _like_ having a common basis for discussing things with other people -- some reason to strike up a conversation.
Anyway, I've work to do!
kelley
"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering pious hicks."
--Bruce Sterling