A power outage knocked me offline over the weekend, so I reread Aaron Hartzler's remarkable "Rapture Practice" memoir, which I happen to own in hardback. Besides reminding me I need more physical books in the house, the experience plunged me back into the authoritarian reality of the Evangelical world.

Hartzler lost his faith over it, as did I. As a teenager, he struggled to reconcile the idea of a loving God with the Evangelical notion of eternal torture for most human beings. He failed to do so, and the harsh disciplinary response to his free thinking drove him away from his family's church and world.

I was left wondering about the bulk of the people who remain. Are they sort of naturally selected for certain character attributes? Unkind, harsh attributes? It would be over generalizing to say that's true across the board, but I think there's something to it.