The correspondence between my experience as a person of faith (the organized variety) is very simolar to what your impression of Nate. The loyalties we have toward our people are so powerful and we can have our own critiques of our people, even sharp ones, and then feel very defensive when people who are not our people in the same group-bonded way, express the objections that we harbor. It is very difficult for human beings not to go along with the many, aka "our people." It's the bonding power of culture, which in our individualistic-myth culture we cannot even acknowledge. A timely piece loaded with insight that resonates.