In Christianity, it shows up as the tension between chapter-and-verse Roman Catholics and holy-rolling Pentecostals; in Islam, it’s solemn imams versus twirling Sufis; in China, it’s by-the-book Confucians against go-with-the-flow Taoists. In each case, a small community figures out a more direct path to knowledge and, because they blossom without the sanction of the orthodoxy, they are persecuted for it.
