Today, Public Face of Christianity Is Unchristian

To the editors:



I read Lucy Caldwell’s comment “Goodness Gracious” (Apr. 17) and thought immediately of Mae West’s riposte that “goodness had nothing to do with it.”

If Caldwell feels that Christianity is dismissed at Harvard, she might take note of who have become its most visible advocates: Fred Phelps, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Ralph Reed. None are known for promoting Christ’s messages of love, tolerance, and generosity. Care for the poor, the sick, the sinner, and the prisoner is absent from today’s Christianity.

The Catholic Church in which I was baptized has spent the past decade equivocating on accepting financial or ethical responsibility for becoming a haven of child predators. Instead, it isolates gay people, suppresses women, prevents contraception from freeing its desperately poor faithful, and thwarts the hopes of millions who might be cured with stem cell discoveries. How Christ-like!

Other Christian faiths which do try to heed Christ’s words are not the “Christians-In-Charge” today. Sadly, they have no television networks or visibility. Instead, we see a howling pack of Pharisees.

The “Christian victim” talking point is only several months old but already trite. If Caldwell is discouraged by the public impression of Christians, she might lead by example. “To the least of these” (Matthew 25:40) was Mother Theresa’s famous phrase. I look forward to hearing of Caldwell’s efforts to further Christ’s work.



MARK S. HRUBY ’78

Arlington, Mass.

April 17, 2006