So Squeaky Wheel and all,
but I love how the Mid-Western extreme fanatical denominations of American Christianity are always the ones who get all the attention. They could be doing anything and they're the ones who get noticed. They could be opposing abortion, defending the Iraq war, being against the Iraq war, stoning gays, or welcoming the homosexual community to their doors and there's always some kind of article or documentary about it passing judgment and making comment. But always in the Mid-West.
That's the amazingly conditional part about it. These articles and documentaries are not, usually, just making comment on the goings-on of that particular church, but of American Christianity in general. And it's such a narrow view to look at Mid-Western American ideology since it's not, I'd say, the norm, but an isolated area. If you're looking for extreme American Christianity the Mid-Western United States is the place to go! Quite frankly if these overseas journalists haven't picked up on that yet, they never will! The BBC is going to continue to have articles about Anti-Abortionist, Anti-Homosexual, Fire and Brimstone, Conservative, Republican, Religious Right types. They don't look at how Christianity is being followed in other parts of the United States. They're not going to Washington state, or Oregon, or Arizona, or Georgia, or New Jersey, or Massachusetts, or Michigan, Montana -- Never any of the border states. The people who aren't stuck in the center and realize that there's a much bigger world out there!
Ok, that was unfair. I'm sure people in Oklahoma, or Missouri or Nebraska realize there's a much bigger world out there than just what they can see come sweeping across the plains. However, going along with my theory that Central Anything is a Giant Hole, it seems like a good theory that because they're stuck out there in the center of this giant country with little flow or major interaction with other people -- because who, seriously, wants to go to Iowa on holiday? -- that they just got stuck into a certain way of thinking. Trends, they say, flow West to East, like the Jet Stream. But actually it's more like the US is in an oven, trend-wise, a convection oven. The perimeter kind of accepts and absorbs certain trends, they're not ubiquitous - there's always the LA versus NY debate or whatever - but the major trends start in L.A., NYC, Miami, Boston (we've got our own way of life out here), Seattle, San Fransisco, Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans -- the major perimeter cities. Not the Centralized cities. Later they'll pick up the trends, but not until they've become well established on the perimeter.
Maybe I'm just a giant A-Hole. Maybe this is just me being really snobby. Maybe I'm just sick of "journalists" telling the world that all American Christians are like these crazies out in Kansas and Nebraska and Missouri, when that's not even the majority of the American Christians -- and there are so many different flavors of American Christianity that it's really foolish and inaccurate to say "Evangelicals" then only show extreme Evangelicals (bordering on Pentacostal Evangelicals most of the time - to.tal different flavor there!) and make it sound like that's how everybody over here is! Especially since it's so not the case.
That's the amazingly conditional part about it. These articles and documentaries are not, usually, just making comment on the goings-on of that particular church, but of American Christianity in general. And it's such a narrow view to look at Mid-Western American ideology since it's not, I'd say, the norm, but an isolated area. If you're looking for extreme American Christianity the Mid-Western United States is the place to go! Quite frankly if these overseas journalists haven't picked up on that yet, they never will! The BBC is going to continue to have articles about Anti-Abortionist, Anti-Homosexual, Fire and Brimstone, Conservative, Republican, Religious Right types. They don't look at how Christianity is being followed in other parts of the United States. They're not going to Washington state, or Oregon, or Arizona, or Georgia, or New Jersey, or Massachusetts, or Michigan, Montana -- Never any of the border states. The people who aren't stuck in the center and realize that there's a much bigger world out there!
Ok, that was unfair. I'm sure people in Oklahoma, or Missouri or Nebraska realize there's a much bigger world out there than just what they can see come sweeping across the plains. However, going along with my theory that Central Anything is a Giant Hole, it seems like a good theory that because they're stuck out there in the center of this giant country with little flow or major interaction with other people -- because who, seriously, wants to go to Iowa on holiday? -- that they just got stuck into a certain way of thinking. Trends, they say, flow West to East, like the Jet Stream. But actually it's more like the US is in an oven, trend-wise, a convection oven. The perimeter kind of accepts and absorbs certain trends, they're not ubiquitous - there's always the LA versus NY debate or whatever - but the major trends start in L.A., NYC, Miami, Boston (we've got our own way of life out here), Seattle, San Fransisco, Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans -- the major perimeter cities. Not the Centralized cities. Later they'll pick up the trends, but not until they've become well established on the perimeter.
Maybe I'm just a giant A-Hole. Maybe this is just me being really snobby. Maybe I'm just sick of "journalists" telling the world that all American Christians are like these crazies out in Kansas and Nebraska and Missouri, when that's not even the majority of the American Christians -- and there are so many different flavors of American Christianity that it's really foolish and inaccurate to say "Evangelicals" then only show extreme Evangelicals (bordering on Pentacostal Evangelicals most of the time - to.tal different flavor there!) and make it sound like that's how everybody over here is! Especially since it's so not the case.