Thanks for thst. I am from UK and now living in Australia. I've not experienced, what I suspect, is the intensity of the Bible Belt hard sell which, as an outsider, seems to me be about dollars more than the welfare of the devotees. The UK has sweet old lady JWs and trainee LDS from Sslt Lake City. None of whom, in my experience, could convincingly sell rice to a starving person. In regional Australia the type of response would be "Yeah, nah mate. You must be a bit warm wander in' around in this heat. Here's a cold beer for your travels."

@Geoffrey51 In my experience the Bible Belt hard sell, as you aptly put it, is about money at one level (mostly, the clergy) but it comes from the rank and file pew-warmers as well, and at that level it's more about getting as many people in agreement with you as possible, because dissent makes them uneasy. Why? Because their beliefs are ridiculous and at some level they know it. If most of society agrees with you, any concerns or doubts you have can be safely ignored. But if there is significant dissent, then the leaks in the abstraction start to really show.

@mordant So true about conforming to consensus. There's a homily somewhere about a man who stops to rest at the edge of a cliff. More and more people join him and create an encampment which turns into a city. Then someone comes through town and says he's not stopping. Cries of dissent ensue as in their minds there is nowhere to go but over the cliff. Regardless he continues, steps into the void and continues travelling. The Dire Straits track 'Telegraph Road', on Love Over Gold I think it is, is a great description of the first part of the tale where a traveller stops and everything builds around him.