I was struck by how Strozier made the connection between the religions evangelism, the violence in Revelation, and that it is largely being practiced by white, upper-class people.  This was something that I feel I often treat as an assumption, and, reflecting back on the documentation Lee gave us at the beginning of the semester (showing the breakdown of Christianity and its “sects”), am interested in thinking about further.

Obviously, this essay hits at a time that religion and “the future,” is in the American social consciousness. I couldn’t help but think of Romney, though he identifies as a Mormon and thus uses the Book of Mormon, and also how very apocalyptic-style thought has often been used to back certain candidates. As someone who grew up in the midst of a largely white, Christian community, reading Strozier, I couldn’t help but reflect on all of the people I knew growing up (that I could classify as fitting Strozier’s description) and the class/socioeconomic levels of those involved.

I can’t help but think that there are certain correlations between being white, upper-class, and filled with the binary belief system, paranoia, and rage of the world. There is often a privileged belief system (that sometimes can be categorized separate from fundamentalism, and then it’s just ‘racism’ or ‘prejudice’) that is easily identified as ethnocentrism, and allows a rich, white person to separate him or herself from the disparity that, let’s face it, is often more common among minorities. This reinforces a binary. There is also the paranoia (citing this from personal, viewed experience of people I knew/know) of being “attacked,” or somehow endangered or threatened by any “dangerous” minorities, especially, and if someone lives in a gated community (especially one that is largely non-ethnic) I think this kind of belief system is easily strengthened. Add to this the idea that a person in a gated community such as this probably drives.

Now, while it may seem silly to consider driving as reinforcement of the fundamentalist, ethnocentric belief system, when I was doing research about the Houston MTA, one reason that was discussed (by a Rice professor of Urban Studies I interviewed) related to this idea: Driving creates a self, and other. Public transportation, which was failing to pique interest in Houston, was uninteresting to the upper class (and inherently white, by correlation) because it meant there was no space, or separation, from those of other classes, races, social statuses – i.e., the homeless or drug-addicted. I think that the professor was on to something here, though it was hard to quantify this hypothesis. I do think that, often, all of this suburban lifestyle I tend to associate with fundamentalist Christianity inherently reinforces the belief system because it leads to a lot of separation, a lot of niche communities (the evangelists, the Protestants, etc. – all separated and labelled) and this means that those niches (such as the gay area of Montrose Street, Houston) is easily ignored by those who find it sinful or dangerous (such as Joel Osteen).