Fundamentalism

[poliphilo]

Religious fundamentalism thrives in deserts. The Middle East (obviously) and (less obviously) rural Texas- where George W Bush grew up.

I've just been reading an article about W's home town of Midland. Nothing there but grit and oil and everyone believes in the Rapture.

Why? Well I guess that kind of landscape isn't conducive to the kind of romantic nature worship that has softened European Christianity. The bushes (no word-play intended) either grow spikes or they burn. No leaves, no flowers, no green pastures for the sheep to lie down beside.

A simple landscape gives birth to a simple faith.

A violent landscape gives birth to a violent faith.

Jihad, crusade, apocalypse. In a place where life struggles against the environment it's easier to believe, and even love, a doctrine of the imminent End of the World.

Comments

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

if you want an interesting look at odessa and midland tx, check out friday night lights

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I see it's a book AND a movie. Which would you recommend?

the book

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

also, this from the new yorker:
That George W. grew up in Midland, Texas, and not Greenwich, Connecticut, shouldn’t deceive anyone, Phillips argues. He and Unger both remind us that Midland, in the fifties, was an affluent village populated by the oil-prospecting sons of Northeastern businessmen. City leaders named roads after Ivy League schools. Although George W. has boasted, in touting his common origins, of having attended San Jacinto Junior High School, his one year there was followed by stints at Houston’s tony Kinkaid School and at Andover.
and:
it’s easy to wonder whether his born-again faith might not represent a decision to break with his father, to escape from the culture of Wasp reserve and austerity. George W. came to his new creed at a time when his life seemed to have fallen short of family expectations. His younger brother Jeb was outperforming him in business and seemed more likely to excel in politics. George W. was, his brother Marvin has said, “the family clown.” Indeed, George and Barbara found their son’s conversion “a stretching experience,” the Schweizers report. “You might say it was almost exaggerated. . . . But George W. seemed to want to be defined differently from the beginning.”

Re: the book

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So he got religion as a way of rebelling. Quaint. Someone, someday will write a very interesting book about that father-son relationship.