You're right. I grew up in an independent evangelical church so I've been attuned to all this since I got out in my teens. To emphasize - American Evangelical C

You're right. I grew up in an independent evangelical church so I've been attuned to all this since I got out in my teens. To emphasize - American Evangelical Christianity is especially insidious about this on multiple levels. In contrast to Mainline Protestantism, the entire movement is based on two particularly pernicious things that map to cultlike methods. They are taught to blindly follow and never question authority. The pastor is the "shepherd" of the "flock" and they openly talk about it in terms echoing the way that the Disciples followed Jesus. And there's a reason you hear about what seem to be so many nasty stories of evangelical religious leaders abusing their power than mainline ones. And there's a reason authoritarian politics are so closely identifiable with evangelism in America. Second, they work HARD TO create an in-group and out-group. There are the "saved" and everyone else. If you're "unsaved" and attend the church, the pressure is INTENSE to commit. RELENTLESS. And once you're in, you're on the inside of an "us against the world" mentality. I'll give an example. You know the current "War On Christmas?" People walking around like NPC's saying "I don't care, I'm going to say Merry Christmas - since when did that become a crime, none of this 'Happy Holidays' stuff!" I remember being inside the movement in the eighties, and the thing they were completely up in arms about then was that businesses were co-opting Jesus's name by using "Christmas" to sell stuff. So the move to "Happy Holidays" by corporate America wasn't just an inclusive, religiously-neutral way to put it. I distinctly remember listening to christian radio at the time and the conversation being about pressure campaigns to get "Merry Christmas" out of businesses. I'm sure businesses were happy to oblige to stop the PR onslaught. It was the "War on Christmas" of its day. And twenty years later when it fits their agenda to creating division between believers and non-believers? The entire thing reversed directions.