Missing the religious mark

Re “The season of solidarity,” Opinion, Dec. 27

Tim Rutten writes brilliantly and warmly on the virtues of solidarity -- what each of us owes to the common good. My personal “Rerum Novarum,” which I have done nothing but howl about, is decent housing for the working poor and safe sanitariums for the homeless mentally ill.

But Rutten downplays the decades of work among orphans, the starving, AIDS victims and exploited children by competent evangelical organizations. He calls evangelical pastor Rick Warren’s leadership in these areas “new,” as if evangelicals are just now waking up to the needs of suffering all over the world!

Evangelicals want to be in solidarity with what Jesus said to do for the needy, and they have been at it for a long time.

Elizabeth Norling

Yorba Linda

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Rutten is a partisan who disrespects opponents of his liberal views with condescending insults, so it’s pretty arrogant for him to reinvent himself as some kind of bridge builder.

He tacitly approves the war on Christmas, which attempts to replace Jesus with a kind of “just society” envisioned by those rejecting deistic faith.

Radicals and elites have been trying to warp Christmas into failed Marxist philosophies or ban it altogether. Their real goal isn’t any so-called just society, it’s about replacing God with themselves.

Pat Murphy

Pacific Palisades