Mixing Religion, Politics

Re “The Politics of Piety,” Opinion, July 11: I am religious, but I will not be voting for George W. Bush for president in November because he lacks the very quality that Charlotte Allen associates with the religious temperament: humility.

In fact, Bush shares with the “irreligious intellectuals and social theorists” of the “ghastly 20th-century experiments” the arrogance of absolute certainty. This absolutism may give comfort to the perplexed, solace to the bereaved and courage to the fearful, but it also rejects questions, dismisses debate and rationalizes butchery in the name of “something, or Someone, beyond yourself.” Allen fails to acknowledge the horrifying fact of history: The zealots quoting the Bible or “Das Kapital” have the same face, the face of death in the name of absolute truth.

Sidney Morrison

Los Angeles

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Allen accuses me of asserting that religion is a graver threat to America than terrorism. I have never said or written any such thing. In the July issue of the American Prospect, I warned of the danger to democracy of those who don’t believe in the primacy of the individual but believe instead that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority, and who disdain reason and logic in favor of religious dogma.

Allen apparently equates all “religion” with such beliefs. This distortion and personal invective are typical of how the right wing subverts rational debate in this country.

Robert B. Reich

Cambridge, Mass.

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Allen’s distortion of my words demands correction. She wrote: “And in a review of several books on the president’s family for the current New Yorker magazine, David Greenberg contends that because the inspiration of God and the Bible ‘is purely personal or subjective, it’s not open to debate -- and decisions based on it become immune from scrutiny.’ In other words, it’s downright undemocratic for the president to mention God in public.” Intelligent readers can see for themselves that her pseudo-paraphrase of my argument (“In other words, ... “) bears no relation to the words of mine she quoted.

But her misrepresentation goes beyond that. I devoted 1,500 words of a 3,700-word essay to the role religion plays in Bush’s governance, in which I explicitly rejected the idea that Allen ascribes to me. Among the subtleties that elude Allen, I noted how Lincoln, among others, used religion as a spur to humility, whereas Bush uses his faith to assure himself that his gut instincts about policy are unerring -- and then to short-circuit public debate. For the full argument, I invite readers to peruse my article, which can be found online.

David Greenberg

New York

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In Allen’s attempt to defend Bush’s public religiosity, her bias leads her to make two assumptions that run contrary to the facts. First she posits that the “horror of 20th-century totalitarianism” is the product of “atheistic ... intellectuals” and that Nazi Germany was generated by turning the government over to “irreligious intellectuals.” That Hitler was neither atheistic nor irreligious is well documented. In 1941 Hitler told one of his generals, “I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.” From the time he was in the trenches in World War I and throughout his rise to power in the following quarter-century, Hitler repeatedly thanked God for his survival and his successes.

In addition to making the assumption that since Hitler’s leadership led to great wrong he must have been atheistic and irreligious, Allen makes the equally absurd assumption that allegiance to a higher authority -- such as Bush claims -- is valuable in that it “is a check on such murderous egotism” as Hitler’s. Say what? Religion is a check on bloody-mindedness? What in history, pray tell, did she base this assumption on?

C.J. Wright

Venice

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When will columnists and critics stop using the word “religious” when they really mean “Christian”? In “The Politics of Piety,” Rick Perlstein defines America’s religious as those “who attend church one or more times a week.” He goes on to discuss the ways that the coming election might play out among voting Christians of several denominations. Those of us who are religious but not Christian feel as left out of this definition of “the religious” as we do on the day the “national” Christmas tree is lit. How about religious American Muslims -- are they among the faithful who staunchly support Bush?

Unitarians are not the only balance to the fundamentalist Christian political machine in this country, and it’s time for our thinkers -- and our representatives -- to stop negating the faith of so many religious Americans.

Franci Levine Grater

Pasadena