Surplus Meaning in Brooklyn

A few years ago, it was revealed that the Southern Baptist Convention had compiled elaborate demographic maps of the United States. The maps displayed painstakingly calculated estimates of the number of citizens in each state who had been saved (46.1 percent in Alabama, for example) and also the number who would burn eternally in a lake of fire. It’s hard to imagine a more ludicrous press release, or a more offensive one—and yet something about the Baptists’ exercise struck a chord in m...