God's Casino: The Texas of George W. Bush

It is no longer possible to dismiss American religiosity as an odd residuum of hillbilly culture. It is now a vivid and organizing force in a mobile America defined by McMansions and office parks. Indeed, the alliance of advanced capitalism and religious fundamentalism is the most remarkable feature of the landscape of American power today. The superchurch and the televangelist are at least as integral to the current culture of American capitalism as Silicon Valley and Las Vegas. More clearly than ever, America has rejected the European understanding of Protestantism as the carrier of rationalization and secularization—as in Max Weber's austere Calvinist capitalist. How are we to understand the transubstantiation of the flinty Yankee, once the incarnation of American capitalism, into the casino capitalist or the indebted but born-again shopper? The rise of the Sunbelt is of course a key component, but, within that larger transformation, the specific weight of Texas power is crucial.