The Tea Party might be fundamentalist. But it isn't Christian.

Behold the power of empty symbols

Tea Party
(Image credit: (Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images))

At The Daily Beast, Jack Schwartz has a sharp analysis of the Tea Party movement. With a keen observation of Tea Party symbols, rhetoric, and fall-back texts, Schwartz concludes that the movement has the shape of a faith, with all relevant signals, rituals, and shibboleths:

Given the confusions of a secular world being rapidly transformed by technology, demography, and globalization, this movement has assumed a spiritual aspect whose adepts have undergone a religious experience that, if not in name, then in virtually every other aspect, can be considered a faith. [The Daily Beast]

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Elizabeth Stoker writes about Christianity, ethics, and policy for Salon, The Atlantic, and The Week. She is a graduate of Brandeis University, a Marshall Scholar, and a current Cambridge University divinity student. In her spare time, Elizabeth enjoys working in the garden and catching up on news of the temporal world.