"What Developed in the South Was a Theology Carefully Tailored to Meet the Needs of a Slave State

"Generation after generation, Southern pastors adapted their theology to thrive under a terrorist state. Principled critics were exiled or murdered, leaving voices of dissent few and scattered. Southern Christianity evolved in strange directions under ever-increasing isolation. Preachers learned to tailor their message to protect themselves. If all you knew about Christianity came from a close reading of the New Testament, you'd expect that Christians would be hostile to wealth, emphatic in protection of justice, sympathetic to the point of personal pain toward the sick, persecuted and the migrant, and almost socialist in their economic practices. None of these consistent Christian themes served the interests of slave owners, so pastors could either abandon them, obscure them, or flee."

Political Orphans runs Chris Ladd's article, which was pulled by Forbes, that explains "Why White Evangelicalism Is So Cruel."

And Isaac Chotiner interviews Michael Gerson in Slate.