God-fearing Fundamentalists

Our first run along backroads today – the farming area of North Carolina. It’s Sunday and obvious – the churches, one every 1 kilometres – have been doing great business, their carparks full of RUV’s, pickups and farm vehicles. Strangely the doors of all churches were closed and those that had windows the curtains pulled, with the congregations inside. The services seem to last all morning. Apart from that the small towns were empty.

They say church attendance in the US is 47% as opposed to New Zealand’s 6%. I’d guess in Backblocks Carolinas its 80%. Interestingly most houses, one week after the celebration, still featured an Easter wreath on their front doors, and Easter flags flying from their flagpoles (many have two flagpoles, the other sporting Old Glory). The church grounds of course are as neat as a pin and the graves all well-tended. Indeed we haven’t seen so many wreaths on gravestones since Bosnia – perhaps the American Backblocks have contributed more than there fair share of the war-dead in Afganistan and Iraq.

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