You wouldn't know this if you were studying serious theology when you could have been dabbling in pop psychology, but:

Deep within the American psyche is a longing for convertive piety. We are a nation and culture of extremes and polarities: The [sic] Saturday night drunk who weaps [sic] in repentance on Sunday morning; The [sic] Sunday night holy man who leaves his ethical convictions at the door of the church when he steps into the office on Monday morning; Lips [sic] that sing the halleluah [sic] chorus opening to display the forked tongue and nasty sting of our gossip, fears and anxieties. As a culture we [sic] are literally haunted by God- the preacher, the church lady, the tortured backslider, the agnostic and the atheist. Religion, and our strange reactions and repulsions to [sic] it, reveal more about us than the nature and character of any divine being. What is revealed in our convoluted spiritual pursuits is the beauty and ambiguity of our common humanity. We are people who can imagine what love is, but can never quite make it to be "on earth as it is in heaven."

In this haunted America everyone is converting to something, and there is no better American archetype than the revivalist. (And I was hoping it would be the robber baron.)

For people who don't yet have it all together and for admirers of inclusive theology, theirs is a pretty aggressive jeremiad. So Larry, Curly and Moe are taking the scam on the road to illustrate something or other related to their insights into preachin' and convertin'. They wear special costumes and they got their pitcher took in front of a microwave and everything.

Children like to dress up.

Clearly conversion is a sore spot with these guys. It's hard to make sense of Tony's ideas, but apparently he gets converted every day, preferably in the morning. But other people's conversions are different and very suspicious.

It is ironic that the people with such keen insights into the defective American psyche are the same illiterates who sit around on couches, compare hypocrisies and listen for the voice of God. Their contempt for the pulpit ranks right up there with their contempt for the English language and rational discussion.

I'm betting their theater ranks right up there with fundamentalists' Wilde.