I always wonder: Why is it tied so closely to American evangelical Christianity?
The answer to this, from what I understand, is SUPER fascinating and a rather straight line with only a single detour. In one word: racism.
Prior to the civil rights movement, you’ll see a higher rate of people who consider themselves religious or of faith, but fewer fundamentalists. When schools started integrating and leading up to Brown v Board of Education, a lot of racist assholes were upset that their child might go to school with someone coloredof color (holy shit, what’s wrong with me today??).
Since public schools were becoming a cesspool of inclusivity (THE HORROR!), private schools realized they could become a safe-haven for segregationists and make bank off of an easily-exploitable, single-issue population. A trusted source of private schooling were churches and they were more than happy to do a racism if it meant easy money.
The religious schools were mutually beneficial for the parents, too. Their kid didn’t go to private school because the parents were racist and wanted their children away from the “colored folk”, they sent their kid to private school because God was super-important and needed to be in the kids’ schooling. Why? Cuz we’re super-religious now!
That’s the ticket! We’re not racist, we’re religious!!! To keep up appearances, the parents would drag their family to church to prove how godly and un-racist they were.
In summary: why are the bigots often intertwined with evangelicals? Cuz you can use God to justify how much you truly suck.
The answer to this, from what I understand, is SUPER fascinating and a rather straight line with only a single detour. In one word: racism.
Prior to the civil rights movement, you’ll see a higher rate of people who consider themselves religious or of faith, but fewer fundamentalists. When schools started integrating and leading up to Brown v Board of Education, a lot of racist assholes were upset that their child might go to school with someone
coloredof color (holy shit, what’s wrong with me today??).Since public schools were becoming a cesspool of inclusivity (THE HORROR!), private schools realized they could become a safe-haven for segregationists and make bank off of an easily-exploitable, single-issue population. A trusted source of private schooling were churches and they were more than happy to do a racism if it meant easy money.
The religious schools were mutually beneficial for the parents, too. Their kid didn’t go to private school because the parents were racist and wanted their children away from the “colored folk”, they sent their kid to private school because God was super-important and needed to be in the kids’ schooling. Why? Cuz we’re super-religious now!
That’s the ticket! We’re not racist, we’re religious!!! To keep up appearances, the parents would drag their family to church to prove how godly and un-racist they were.
In summary: why are the bigots often intertwined with evangelicals? Cuz you can use God to justify how much you truly suck.