America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developed nations and the least Christian in its behavior. That paradox—more important, perhaps, than the much touted ability of French women to stay thin on a diet of chocolate and cheese—illuminates the hollow at the core of our boastful, careening culture.

Harpers has a fascinating article on America's uniquely Christian Culture, discussing the core religious tension at the heart of our country's social engine. Seventy-five percent of the population, for example, mistakenly attributes Ben Franklin's proverb "God helps those who help themselves" to the Bible, even though it directly contradicts other Scriptural principles. Metafilter has a discussion gearing up on the article, but it's likely to devolve into "religion: pros and cons" within a few hours.

Meanwhile, over on Kierkegaard Lips, my friend Rachel is grappling with some genuinely profound questions about faith and love.

...I got to thinking about how hard it is to love. How hard it is for me to even think about loving my dad. How hard it is to love people that I think are stupid and mean, or on the other hand those who try too hard to flaunt their giant pulsating brains filled with logic and graphs and boxes and charts. I spoke with a few people lately who told me that their own faith is based largely in logic, and that the more "spiritual" aspect of their faith is virtually non-existant. Sometimes I feel like I have the opposite mentality; my faith largely supported by my dreams, visions, and strange conceptual leaps that I make between Biblical idealogy and manic delusional thought processes based in my own excessive existentialism...

I wonder if she might be talking around the edges of this great divide between our stated 'religion culture' and the way we as Americans tend to think and live and truly believe. But then, it's not just a head versus heart issue -- most Americans are as confused about the logical theology as they are about the 'heart' of Christianity. I've been pondering the country's Revivalist history for a while, partially inspired by Catherine's research about Emily Dickinson. I wonder if these sorts of cracks and inconsistencies in the American religious experience are part of our heritage as much as the First and Second Amendments, etc.