I live in a small suburb of Dallas. By all accounts it shouldn't even exist as it is a contractor/developer tax dodge. Anyway my particular neighborhood has 65 homes. I happen to know everyone that lives here, the names of their dogs and children in my subdivision. I also know their religion/cult. One group that recently started moving in to my neighborhood is affiliated with a local church. The church sprang up 6+ years ago taking over a Grocery store in a nearby strip mall. The church describes itself as evangelical. It has earned the nick name "the crazy church" as it is even more far out than the usual Baptist churches in the area. which is saying a great deal since I live in Texas. Anyway, A total of 5 families in my neighborhood go to that church. The one thing about these families is that they will not associate with anyone besides people that attend that church. Oh they say hi and wave and things like that, but as far as anything else they just don't associate. I got to know one family as they were dead set on converting me (I was a challenge). They tried to be pleasant and appear reasonable, but after awhile they became insulting and condescending. They told that I am immoral because I am not christian...yadayadayada...etc... the same old crap as usual. I have tried best I could to enlist these 5 families in different activities, tried to find common ground. The thing is even if there is something they have in common with people outside their church they still refuse to associate with anyone BUT people in their church. Now there is nothing illegal about this behavior, but it is anti-social. It is incestuous and unhealthy. It leads to hate, prejudice, and misunderstanding. They live in a bubble. The really sad thing is that children are imprisoned in this world, this bubble where the only thoughts and direction come from one deranged man. This is how the Billy Grahams come to power. These little pockets of bubbles grow into mega-churches of a closed (closed minded) sect.
Everything about this group is troubling. They are told how to speak, to whom to associate with, how to think, and how to vote!
It's a bubble that should by all accounts be popped!
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mykcob4 - "The church sprang up 6+ years ago taking over a Grocery store in a nearby strip mall."
Yeah, you definitely live in Texas; strip malls full of tattoo parlours, gun stores, pawn shops, and creepy fly by night churches.
I live in the UK which has its own problems but the one that you describe Myke, (that of an apparently insular and superstitious cult) is quite rare. Where it does exist it is usually an import from Africa or somewhere.
Tribalism seems a bane on 21st century society and how long can these superstitions remain mainstream?.....
Christians praying...
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=images+christians+praying&rlz=1C1EODB_...
The Hajj...
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=images+the+hajj&rlz=1C1EODB_enGB540GB5...
UK imported religion (Christian)...
http://homersykes.photoshelter.com/gallery/BLACK-AFRICAN-AND-AFRO-CARIBB...
Tribalism as you call it has been around since mankind. Here in the US it has existed forever. We might call it something different these days but American history is full of it. Shakers, Quakers, Mormons, and on and on. Religions in the USA seem to particularly prone to separatism and tribalism.
More on the Bubble. Just today I went to play basketball in the Methodist church. I go to play there because the best competition plays there. I noticed out of the corner of my eye two of my neighbors that attend the "crazy church" waiting to play. I asked one "why are you here?" He answered that his church doesn't have a gym yet and he won't go to a secular fitness gym to play ball or work out. I thought for a moment about secular vs. religious situations. So I asked him "Don't you work at ********?" He said yes. "Well isn't that a secular company?" "Do you take secular money that they make from secular customers?" He was clearly upset and he paused to regain his composure. Then with great force and intensity he sid "Should you even be in this church, you being an atheist?" I responded calmly and quite clearly. "To me this is just a building. I am respectful of the people who own the building and afford me the opportunity to play ball here. They know full well that I am an atheist and they don't ask me to compromise myself to play here. I don'y judge them and they don't judge me. BTW Atheist are not at war with theist, not even in any competition with each other. Only people like you have a problem with people, if they are secular or evangelical. Only people like you are the hypocrites for taking secular money from secular people and then condemning those same people for being secular." He and his friend left not knowing what to do. They should have stayed and enjoyed playing basketball....a purely secular sport.
Perhaps the Bubble can be perceived as a way of thinking where religion is so dominant in a persons life they feel everything must be viewed through a religious lens. The Pope was quoted this morning on Al Jazeera TV as saying (if I remember accurately) that French secularism is guilty of treating religion as a sub-culture. Well what is religion if not a subculture in a nation (or other body) of people? I do not live in a 'Christian culture' when most Christians I meet readily acknowledge the three for one offer is drivel, the Earth is billions of years old, the Bible shouldn't be taken literally and religions are man-made and not god-given.
Yes. The truth is that evangelist see things in black and white. They don't even acknowledge their own hypocrisy. They see secularism as atheist instead of what it really is. Evangelist will take money from the secular world openly and freely and then condemn the secular world.
It sounds like they are a less aggressive version of the Westboro Baptist Church.
It's a good way to control your "flock": Don't allow them to get outside influences.
A good example. People that think that Westboro can't happen in their neighborhood are deceiving themselves. All it takes is one deranged fanatic preacher and Westboro happens. The preach of said church decides he doesn't like something (his personal taste) and he spews all sorts of hate and claims that god doesn't like it. Then the whole congregation become activist. They make posters and schedule demonstrations. Invariably one or two of the nutcases act out with violence. Someone gets hurt or killed and the church that started the whole mess doesn't accept responsibility. It happens over and over, usually over an issue that is none of the churches business in the first place. Like abortion, homosexuality. All attempts to make an issue that is an individual right. Racism, sexism, all caused by this sort of incestuous behavior.