How Texas Became a Conservative Evangelical Powerhouse by Miles Mullin from Christianity Today. In his new book Rough Country, the sociologist Robert Wuthnow traces how theologically and politically conservative Christianity in Texas both continues (in belief) and refines (in attitudes to race and politics) the state’s traditions.

Pretty Much All of Your Weird Germ-Avoidance Behaviors Are Pointless  by Vicky Gan on the website CityLab. Covering your mouth after someone sneezes? You’re too late.

The 9 Unbreakable Rules of the Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner Universe by Kelsey McKinney on the website Vox. Like “The Road Runner must stay on the road — otherwise, logically, he wouldn’t be called Road Runner.”

Dylan Thomas, the Last True Bohemian by Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal. If only the great poet had been only a bohemian and not also a bad friend, bad husband, bad neighbor, but it makes for an interesting life to read about.

The Shopkeeper’s Dilemma and Cooperation with Evil by Robert T. Miller in Public Discourse. After a careful consideration of the traditional Christian understanding of the problem of cooperating with evil, the Catholic and libertarian law professor argues that a shopkeeper might for example sell a wedding cake for a gay “wedding,” “if he does so in order to comply with a validly-enacted law, to preserve the goodwill of his business, and to make a just profit.”

Ideas That Deserve To Die . . . But Probably Won’t by John Farrell on Forbes magazine’s website. Some people include religion in that list but other, wiser, people include that and other of scientism’s pet assertions.