Free Christian Nation by Frederic C. Rich

godforsaken Oklahoma? They can worship corn for all I care.”
    “They do,” said Sanjay, “have two United States senators. You would not believe how bad things have gotten there. It’s this ugly mix of anti-immigrant sentiment, over-the-top patriotism, and Christian fundamentalism. Did you know that in a poll, 60 percent of Oklahomans said they did not believe that Christians and Muslims worship the same God? Even on the subject of their own religion, they display astonishing ignorance. Most believe, like the bride’s sister at Jim’s wedding, that God created man and the dinosaurs at the same time. This is possible because almost a fifth of the children are homeschooled and exposed only to Christian fundamentalist doctrine. They’ve never been to a public school and never been exposed to any non-fundamentalist views. And it is not just Oklahoma; Idaho and some other western states are not far behind.”
    When he noticed that Emilie wasn’t really listening, he stopped.
    I reflected on all this the next day in one of the places I did my best thinking, the first-class cabins of the really good international airlines, such as Emirates. En route to Dubai, I was settled into my own small cabin, with a sliding electric door cutting off the distractions of my fellow passengers, sipping Arabic coffee and—through four windows—enjoying the view of the clouds below and the dark edge of the atmosphere above. During my first two years at RCD&S, much of the actual work was ministerial—routine research, drafting documents based on precedents with little need for variation, and the review of large stacks of contracts and corporate documents known as due diligence. But instead of complaining that the work was not sufficiently challenging, I forced myself to think about the reasons the transactions were structured the way they were, and I tried to figure out whether I could conceive a more efficient or less risky alternative. This critical and creative habit of mind stood me in good stead, and I quickly was given more advanced work than was customary for associates at my level. Powerful partners with interesting work, including a senior partner in line to be the firm’s chairman, increasingly sought me out to be assigned to their transactions. To emerge as a star in a group of the country’s brightest and hardest-working young lawyers was, honestly, a source of some surprise to me, but I was truly delighted by the fast pace at which my career was advancing. My determination to stick it out and become a partner was firming.
    Six hours later, after a good sleep on a flat bed covered with a starched linen comforter, I was eating a breakfast of freshly scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, and fresh figs. The flight map on the large plasma screen at the opposite end of my small cabin indicated that we were directly over Baghdad. Here I was, cosseted with every indulgence, and 39,000 feet below me were other Americans my age fighting a needless war and dying by the thousands, mostly by being blown up by a faceless enemy. I wondered why I was here and not there. The skies were cloudless, and I could see the Euphrates and even make out the Green Zone, familiar from so many maps on the television news.
    Perhaps being in the air so much contributed to a feeling of separation from the rest of humanity. I realized that the way the world really worked—how things got done, who had power, and why things actually happened the way they did—was almost completely opaque to ordinary people. I felt an increasing sense of estrangement from those not living a similar life. They didn’t “get it,” we would say. The handmaiden of justifiable pride is an ugly undercurrent of arrogance from which I was not exempt. Many of my colleagues came to see the rest of humanity as idiots, ordinary people bumbling through life in a fog of imprecision with no real knowledge of the world, easily duped, analytically handicapped, and generally clueless. I suppose you