Science follows evidence; political science follows opinion; religious science follows myth and is therefore no science at all. - Robert S. McElvaine

Here is the fundamental message of the fun-damentalists: Say “Jesus” and then you don’t have to do Jesus.

Much as the Nazis created an “Aryan Jesus” because the real Semitic Jesus was not to their liking, the Lite Christians have created an American Jesus or a Muscular Jesus or a Consumerist Jesus because they don’t like the real nonviolent/turn-the-other-cheek/love-your-enemy/meek-shall-inherit-the-earth/easier-for-a-camel-to-go-through-the-eye-of-a-needle-than-for-a-rich-man-to-enter-heaven/drive-the-moneychangers-from-the-temple Jesus. They simply re-create Jesus in their own image.

"Economic conservatives," Kevin Phillips notes, "often warm to sects in which a preoccupation with personal salvation turns lower-income persons away from distracting visions of economic and social reform."