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The Spectacle Blog

Wieseltier Takedown of Sullivan

By Joseph Lawler on 2.9.10 @ 10:26AM

Leon Wieseltier has a brilliant takedown of Andrew Sullivan at Sullivan's old outlet, the New Republic.

Hardly a day goes by when I don't stop myself from posting a rebuttal of some argument Sullivan's made or some falsehood that he's promoted. And that's true of everyone here at TAS: if you didn't hold back, the blog would devolve into a catalogue of his errors and misstatements. Especially when Sullivan writes about the pope or Catholicism, I, as someone who knows the first thing about it, am always shocked by his craziness. Wieseltier's topic is Sullivan's treatment of Israel and American Jews, and it's pretty damning.

View all comments (10) | Leave a comment

S.L. Toddard| 2.9.10 @ 12:45PM

"The idea of plurality in the deity, like the idea of corporeality in the deity (Auden would not have had an easier time with the Incarnation!), represents nothing less than a retraction of the monotheistic revolution in thinking about God, a reversal of God’s sublimity, a regress to polytheistic crudity."

???

WJ| 2.9.10 @ 1:24PM

Seriously, why does anyone care about what Sullivan writes? Why spend the time rebutting what he writes? He simply is not that important.

Matt| 2.9.10 @ 2:56PM

SL,

The author is saying that the Trinity is not monotheism, but a reversion to polytheism.

S.L. Toddard| 2.9.10 @ 6:29PM

Yes, I understand that. Mr. Lawler indicated that part of the reason he takes issue with Sullivan is Sullivan's anti-Catholicism, and then cites a piece by a man who describes the Trinity - a fundamental belief of Catholicism in particular and Christianity in general - as "a reversal of God’s sublimity" and "a regress to polytheistic crudity."

philogratis| 2.10.10 @ 10:53PM

Other than the irony of openly slamming most of the worlds major religions in a piece on anti-Semitism, is polytheism really crude, which gives the impression of simplicity and rough form, while Hinduism and Catholicism both have belief structures that to me seem maddeningly intricate and arcane.

WendyG| 2.9.10 @ 3:20PM

It's about time someone wrote about this.

wwwexler| 2.9.10 @ 3:23PM

AIDS induced dementia?

eric| 2.11.10 @ 3:17PM

this is funny?

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