There’s an interesting documentary on Google, Turning Muslim in Texas, about a number of Southern Baptists converting to Islam, often because they don’t think Christianity is conservative enough.

It’s one of those things that feed my suspicion that moral critiques of conservative religion have an element of futility about them. The submission, the strictness, the stifling sense of pre-determined order—those things that grate on liberal sensibilities are also exactly what are attractive to large numbers of people. On top of it, religions are extremely flexible, so there’s a faith out there that is bound to fit any moral sensibility; you just have to shop long enough to find it. So just exactly what is a secularist moral perspective supposed to end up criticizing? Faith as a kind of intellectual sin? Maybe, but that’s bound to be even more futile than denouncing the oppressive aspects of conservative religion.