The American Spectator

br> — Jim Whittle br> Douglasville, Georgia /p>

The article “Fear and Fanaticism at the Times” by Mark Goldblatt betrays an astonishing lack of historical information. It is not the case that homosexuals are no longer put to death “because Jews and Christians have incorporated the Enlightenment into their understanding of their respective religious traditions. The Bible might be the alpha and omega of their moral selves, but fatal literalism of the kind that would kill homosexuals is off the table…. The Enlightenment has, in effect, defanged the Bible.”

In fact, sodomy has rarely, if ever, been capitally punished in any Christian society. Although recognized as a mortal sin, which excludes the sinner from heaven (1 Corinthians 6:9-10), this vice is to be corrected by repentance. For example, Richard the Lionhearted twice underwent public penance (whipping) for sodomy in the 12th century.

p>Mr. Goldblatt would do better to credit Christianity with having, in his graceless words, “defanged the Bible.” Christian doctrine is that God intended the severity of many aspects of the Old Law to be pedagogic, to inculcate the awareness in fallen humanity that moral conduct matters gravely; the coming of the Redeemer brought mitigation of this severity as an encouragement to acceptance of the proffered grace “for my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Matthew 11:30). br> — G.W. McKenna /p> p> “Enlightened” Mark Goldblatt’s article is flawed in so many ways that it is possible to completely miss its principal failing. That is, that his article conspires in the unequal treatment of Terri Schiavo. According to him and his fellow journalists at the NYT , Terri’s defenders were only allowed to stand by weeping and wailing while she was besieged to death by an armed force. What concerns the journalists at the NYT , however, is that such violence should not be extended to superior liberals, for then the force of the law would be required to come to the rescue and repel violence with violence. Hence the fact that “enlightened” Judge George Greer was given an armed guard and not an entourage of “defanged Christians.”