In a few short days, I’ll begin the long drive home for the
holidays. Fifteen hours and six states later, I’ll complete the trek from the
Sunshine to the Sunflower State. Considering how many times I’ve driven from
the Florida panhandle to southeast Kansas, you would think that I would have a
better answer to the question: Where is home?
Without trying to give Rick Scott more reason to privilege STEM
programs over the humanities, let me explain. It’s a more difficult
question to answer than you might think because of the odd role Kansas plays in
the historiography of the American West. Compasses are not all that helpful:
Kansas does not belong to the regional histories of the North nor the South; the
East nor the West (ignoring for a moment my own efforts to situate it there).
Cultural geographers have changed their minds over time too. Kansas has a part
of the West, Midwest, and Great Plains as its identity shifted from a territory
on the frontier (even a part of a Gold Rush) to “fly over state.” Setting aside
these questions of regionalism, sociologist Robert Wuthnow places Kansas on the
nation’s cultural map according to one quality that seems to endure: Kansas is a
solidly red state.
It is certainly hard to disagree. As Wuthnow points out in Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America’s Heartland, Kansas has voted Republican in every
presidential election between 1968 and 2008 (2). And now we can also include
the 2012 election in which Mitt Romney received 60% of the popular vote and
only 2 of 105
counties went blue (Douglas and Wyandotte counties for those of you playing
trivia at home). While there certainly
are other states that are red, Kansas appears to be quintessentially so.
Wuthnow attempts to explain why by examining the religion and politics of the
state. Instead of asking “What’s the
Matter With Kansas?” and draw attention to the ways religion fuels an
ideological conservatism, Wuthnow asserts a “red state religion” in Kansas that
is more of a “practical” conservatism. He writes:
“red state religion and politics in
Kansas had less to do with contentious moral activism than it did with local
communities and relationships among neighbors, friends, and fellow churchgoers”
(8).
It feels like Wuthnow’s assertion could be true.
Growing up in rural Kansas, I know that the local community can be like an
extended family. Next week, when neighbors see my car in the driveway they are
likely to come over and catch up, asking about my semester and if I have
finished my dissertation yet (so close, I promise!). I understand Wuthnow’s attempt to draw
attention away from a small number of (mostly male) ideological firebrands who
catch headlines and toward the more private expressions of religion, especially
women, in this red state.
But the scholar in me thinks twice. For all the complexity
that Wuthnow adds to the portrait of this red state, the picture is a little
too neat. In particular, I wonder why the “practical” and “ideological” sides
of conservatism are depicted as opposing forces at all. It seems possible to me
that contentiousness can be the result of local relationships among neighbors,
especially those who did not want their neighborhood to include certain
neighbors. From battles with border ruffians during the Bleeding
Kansas territorial period to Carrie
A. Nation smashing saloons to battles over abortion clinics, pragmatic
concerns about local neighborhoods are fully a part of the moral activism that
has defined this red state. For instance, concern over who belongs to the
neighborhood and, therefore, deserves the care and concern of others, caused
Social Gospel minister, Charles Sheldon to push his congregants to cross the
borders of their own neighborhood and serve the residents of
Tennesseetown, the neighborhood that belonged to Exoduster migrants. In
other words, is a “neighborly” and practical conservatism all that different
from an ideological one?
Wuthnow leaves plenty of room for further scholarship on the
complexities of Kansas and I certainly hope we see more examinations of
religion in red (and blue) states on the horizon soon. It’s a good thing I have
15 hours ahead of me.
No comments:
Post a Comment