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Their wordsSimple verbal persuasion - changing listeners' minds merely by exposing them to ideas - is too weak to have the kind of effects that sermons seem to have.
Their wordsA proper sermon, then, is an attempt to cultivate a network effect around a shared value - and the preacher herself acts as a seed around which the network crystallizes.
Their wordsAnd this, I'm a bit sad to report, is why outrage is so contagious. Outrage is like the angry, pitchfork-wielding cousin of the more conventional, respectable type of sermon. But it's a member of the sermon family nonetheless, and therefore subject to all the dynamics we've discussed here today.
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