Protesting the atheism at National Review

Alan Roebuck sent the below letter last Friday to Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of the online version of National Review, protesting the recent comments by NRO contributors that were not just atheistic but contemptuous of religion (they’ve been discussed here and here at VFR). He has not heard back from her.

Dear Miss Lopez:

At the Corner, Andrew Stuttaford and John Derbyshire expressed their belief that Christianity, one of the pillars of the Western Civilization and the American nation that conservatism putatively is pledged to defend, is a fairy tale. And at NRO there has so far been no expression of disagreement, let alone any intellectually persuasive case that they are wrong.

This is a part of an ongoing pattern at NR and NRO: An aggressive atheist makes a case for the falsehood of Christianity and theism, and NR’s resident theists respond with a weak or nonexistent argument. This gives the undecided onlookers the impression that Christianity cannot rationally be defended.

Aside from undermining genuine conservatism, this impression is entirely wrong. Any halfway-decent Christian apologist (one trained in the intellectual defense of Christianity), including myself, could easily shred the irrational and probably emotion-based positions and arguments of the anti-theists. If your editors would give us a chance, that is.

As the old saying goes: silence is agreement. Do you agree with Andrew and John? If so, shame on NRO. And if you do not, why not give the other side a fair chance to make its case?

As I wrote to Derbyshire,

“Bottom line: [the anti-theists] are saying that only the most obvious, tangible facts can known. But man cannot live by the obvious alone, and so [their] position, because it is quite popular in the West, is one of the main reasons why the West cannot summon the courage to defend itself.”

Sincerely,
Alan Roebuck

- end of initial entry -

LA replied to Mr. Roebuck:

Thank you for writing this. If more people would write similar letters, perhaps something would get though to the NR people.

I recommend sending a similar letter to NR’s editor, Richard Lowry.

A reader writes:

Gosh, I haven’t been going to NRO for some days now what with Easter and other things. This is a disgrace. They should get someone to write a whole article explaining why they continue to feature these atheists (they could be told that they can publish at NRO on other subjects but not on atheism), and then have someone construct the whole argument and defense of Christianity. Then say that’s that. Grow up. We don’t intend to let ourselves be sidewiped by nasty atheists when we’re not looking. Go peddle your atheism elsewhere.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 25, 2008 03:20 PM | Send