Joseph Hogan at The Point:
But it wasn’t as if, by leaving church, I could escape. In the Midwest, everything is haunted by Jesus: the Rust Belt towns, the long gray freeways; county fairs in the summer with headlining Christian bands; breweries full of wholesome Christian hipsters in warm sweaters, Iron and Wine or Sufjan Stevens on the sound system. After belief, I didn’t want to drive through the suburbs and come upon some postwar church with hymnals full of David Haasand Marty Haugen songs. Even living near Lake Michigan became impossible. I’d drive to the lake after work and walk along the beach as the sun set, moodily brooding. The lake had its own extra-diegetic soundtrack, from the “Pure Michigan” campaign, which O’Gieblyn describes as evoking the kind of “autumnal sentimentalism” that “animates Starbucks ads and late-career Diane Keaton films.” She notes that you can easily imagine the voice over the ads—Middle America’s dad, Tim Allen—as belonging “to God himself.”
more here.