We know sociologically that the principle of "homophily" (love for and attraction to what is similar to oneself) is one of the strongest forces operating in social life. As a result, biblicists (and most other Christians) who interpret the Bible in the same way have a very strong tendency to cluster together into homogeneous social networks of similarly believing people. One name for that when it is institutionalized is "Protestant denominations." Most people--including most biblicists--tend to live in relatively "small" worlds, in the subcultures and social circles with which they are most at home and comfortable. Homophily is powerful this way--even the most seemingly "cosmopolitan" people tend actually to live in parochial worlds. In fact, empirical research shows that evangelicals tend to live in more religiously homogeneous worlds than most (though not all) other religious Americans. For biblicists these relatively small worlds can function as effective "polausibility structures" to sustain the "reality" and believability of their particular assumptions and convictions--as the same small worlds that most everyone else, including atheists and adherents of every other belief system, so for them.
Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 60-61.
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