Here is what liberal educators think of evangelicals, according to James Taranto in Best of the Web. May I have another helping of condescension, please?
"... here's an academic tale that will make you smile. Tanya Luhrmann, a Stanford anthropologist, did some field work on an exotic tribe called "evangelical Christians." She explains their mysterious ways to the open-minded, curious readers of the New York Times.
"If you want to understand how evangelicals conceive of their
political life, you need to understand how they think about God," she
explains. "I saw that when people prayed, they imagined themselves in
conversation with God. They do not, of course, think that God is
imaginary. . . . They imagine God as wiser and kinder than any human
they know."
Fascinating, isn't it? Apparently some of these people live right
here in America! In her fieldwork, Luhrmann reports, "I met doctors,
scientists and professors at the churches."
And they vote--but they vote differently from the way regular
people--oops, make that "secular liberals"--vote: "When secular liberals
vote, they think about the outcome of a political choice. . . . When
evangelicals vote, they think more immediately about what kind of person
they are trying to become--what humans could and should be, rather than
who they are."
Uh-oh, that could spell trouble for liberal politicians. But don't
worry, Luhrmann has figured it out: "If Democrats want to reach more
evangelical voters, they should use a political language that
evangelicals can hear." And don't worry: "The good news for secular
liberals is that evangelicals are smarter and more varied than many
liberals realize."
And hey, we've always found that when we're trying to persuade
someone of something, it's always helpful to say: "Wow, you're smarter
than I realized!"
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