Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood" and Pathologies of Religion

I had read Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor a few years ago. I remember at the time I thought that the story had some insights into modern religious pathologies, but I would have to do a closer read and possibly some research to explore that thought further. Since my list of "backburner" projects has only grown since then, I'm giving this one up and simply presenting some passages I had marked and some accompanying thoughts.

The novel uses racist anti-black slurs frequently, as did the author in real life. None of these appears in the quotes for this blog entry.

My titles in bold. Quotes are from an online, full-text edition.