Creepy Christianity and September 11

I begin with a quotation about the United States in 2004:

[H]airy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us…

Is this the irritated rant of an urban hipster, mercilessly mocking those beyond the world of downtown lofts and polymorphous pleasure; words dropped from a laptop while hurtling across the so-called fly-over states? No. The quotation comes from a true son of the Midwest, Garrison Keillor (2004). One must ponder hard a nation where the vast majority attests to the existence of a devil and individuated angels; 45% of people think aliens have visited Earth; three times more people think there are ghosts than was the case a quarter of a century ago; and 84% say there is posthumous survival of the soul, up 24% on 1972 (Hutton, 2003a; Mann 2003: 103; Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2004; Gallup, 2002-03; O’Connor 2005: 8).