A reader writes:
I think the last paragraph of this post on Christianism and various social problems probably is wrong. My suspicion is that the causality runs in the other direction — places that are economically depressed and see higher percentages of illegitimacy, divorce, and more turn to somewhat backwards and harsh fundamentalist religion, mostly as some sort of coping mechanism. The stilted morality they find in such churches seems to be what is needed to push back against the decay they see around them. Certainly, at some point, a feedback loop emerges and disentangling cause and effect becomes difficult, so while I may be simplifying I think my depiction is basically correct.
To take another example, when you were at least tepidly defending (parts) of Rev. Wrights sermons and behavior, you seemed to think it was a somewhat unfortunate but nonetheless understandable response to the problems of urban African-Americans and America’s tortured racial history more generally. I don’t understand why you couldn’t apply the same reasoning to poor Southern whites.
I’m second to none in my distaste for the theology of various Christianists. But what you described is, I think, a trope that deserves to either be quashed or given real justification (correlation is not causation!), but not simply perpetuated.
I take the point, but it still occurs to me that the impossible demands of rigid Christianism, and its inability to grapple moderately with messy human nature, make matters worse. Denial is not a way to address real problems. But it works the other way too, as my reader notes. The feedback loop is perhaps the best formulation.
The Dish 