When Christians Fight

Here's a quality open letter in the latest issue of Esquire magazine from Mark Warren to Dinesh D'Souza concerning the latter's new book, What's So Great About Christianity?:


Dear Dinesh,

Poor Jesus.

In reading your latest offering, What's So Great About Christianity (Regnery, $28), I can't help but think of the scene from Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters, in which Max von Sydow's character says, "if Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, He'd never stop throwing up."

As a Christian raised in a Christian country in a Christian epoch, I can only say that nothing makes me want to run into the waiting arms of Satan faster than your soul-killing pseudo-academic cant, which you allege to have written on behalf of Christ, which really fills me with pity for Him. Among the many other achievements of your book, you manage to blame the Inquisition on the wily Jews we foolishly always thought were its victims ("the idea that the Inquisition targeted Jews is a fantasy"), you harrumph about "why religion is winning," you embarrass yourself further by postulating on the "spiritual basis for limited government," and you take it upon yourself to pronounce, "This is not a time for Christians to turn the other cheek." You don't say. Since you've now blithely amended one of the central tenets of Christianity, I must object on His behalf.

Yes, Dinesh, you've written another vulgar book. You regard your religion as a rabid fan would regard his football team. And you use God for the most tawdry and temporal of purposes: to make a political argument. How pathetic. If He is indeed under assault as you say, from atheists and others, it is because of, not in spite of, people like you, Dinesh. So here's a tip for you: While you may well need Jesus, He really doesn't need you or your little book. If you never existed, He would be just fine. Furthermore, you don't seem to have the foggiest idea what's so great about Christianity.

In spite of this, by page 136 you accomplish what none of the great human minds has ever been able to: You prove the existence of God. It was supereasy, as it turns out. In all His wisdom, He did not fully reveal Himself to Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas. or Mother Teresa, but He came to you, of all people. And coming as you do from the bald-assertion school of philosophy, you come to know Him in writing that is at once an offense against language, reason, and God. A stunning trifecta:

"It seems at this point that we have established the existence of a creator, but nothing can be known about the nature of that creator. I submit that this is not so . . . . As the universe comprises the totality of nature, containing everything that is natural, Its creator must necessarily be outside nature. As the creator used no natural laws or forces to create the universe, the creator is clearly supernatural . . ."

Yes, clearly. No one working today can leech the beauty, power, mystery, and integrity from the Christian message like you can, Dinesh. I've got news for you, though: Your Dartmouth-term-paper research skills notwithstanding, you can't get to God through reasoning. Especially your reasoning. That's what faith is for. And so what you intend as a pep rally for the God of Moses has the resounding opposite effect. This, it seems, is your great talent and your legacy: You have the creative imagination of a clerk, with just enough juice to arouse the ire and clarify the thinking of reasonable people far and wide. But cut it out, Dinesh. Jesus doesn't need favors like this. Please, I implore you: Stop writing.

Oh, and another thing: After your last book, The Enemy at Home, in which you sided with the Islamofascists and blamed the attacks of 9/11 on the American "cultural left," I challenged you in these pages (January 2007) to fight. I am very easy to reach, Dinesh, but somehow haven't heard from you. The offer still stands. Not a time to turn the other cheek, indeed.