…and a significant fraction of its members don’t take its rites and doctrines seriously. These days, for many self-ientified “Christians,” it means “people like us.” This is particularly true during the last half-century as the Right has toiled sedulously to corral believers and hangers-on.

It’s kinda like wearing a tie at work, which I did for most of my career. It’s a signal, not of the fact that I craved that slight choking sensation all day, but that I recognized the existence of a hierarchy, accepted its authority to promulgate an arbitrary dress code, and was prepared, in abiding by that standard, to acknowledge its authority in exchange for the privileges (mainly those regular EFTs that showed up in my checking account) attendant thereupon.

It was a sort of low-rent Faustian pact. I never subscribed to any of the succession of BDS “Mission Statements” (Fuck. Me.), but the act of keeping a straight face—indeed, of nodding in apparent sage approval—kept me enrolled in the club.

Now imagine this in the Christian populace at large, only in society rather than (or in addition to) the workplace.

devoutly,