LETTERS.

Examine the Track Record

THE PERSON IN charge of Bush's disingenuously labeled "Faith-Based Initiatives" program, John DiIulio ("Acting in Good Faith," May-June 2001) has a history of advancing ideas that have outcomes quite different than those he and his enablers predicted. He predicted the rise of a plague of "super-predator" teen-agers, which resulted in the enacting of draconian legislation and the building of prison facilities for that population. As it turned out, Professor DiIulio's predicted plague did not materialize--though the brutally destructive consequences of his "solution" continue. As it further turned out, his prediction was based upon bad data.

In this instance, however, he has no data to back up his assertion that religion does better and costs less than [other] social programs. When do we not only stop listening to [such people] but also stop giving them platforms from which to preach yet more destruction? When will we, at minimum, examine their track record and demand they back up their un-evidenced "faith"?

Joseph Nagarya
Boston, Massachusetts

Who Was That Masked Woman?

I HAVE BEEN a reader of your magazine for many years, but I have never dropped you a line until now. Your article about Muslim women ("Who Is That Veiled Woman?" by Pat McDonnell Twair, May-June 2001), made me curious. How about African-American Muslim women? How are they perceived? What about the fact that an extremely large number of Arabs living in America are Christians? Lastly, what about the small but increasing number of Christian women who cover their heads at all times in public?

A lot of people call them legalistic, but is that fair? Just some topics I'd like to see covered in Sojourners in the future. I'm a black member of the Church of the Brethren and I'd like to see people get beyond the "that's legalistic" stereotyping.

Jacinda Jones
New York, New York

Does Data Have a Soul?

IN "MACROWAVE" (March-April 2001), I hope David Batstone is not saying that the characteristics of "love, joy, peace, compassion, goodness" are the sole characteristics of a soul, i.e. soul as used in the scriptures. His comment, "our destiny lies with choices of the heart," does not preclude that all types of genetic enhancements could not produce androids with the characteristics of love and joy, etc. Indeed one can wonder whether some of the naturally occurring types of humans we have now, including some who define themselves as Christians, could not more accurately be defined as rather primitive androids.

Our society is perfectly capable of constructing concrete, explicit behaviors such as peace and goodness. I think a distant future of enhanced androids may be better than some of the deficient, destructive, negative, and cruel humans that we have now.

Walter H. Baily
Parsonsfield, Maine

Avant-Garde Models

NAOMI KLEIN says she would like to make the anti-globalization movement "real to peoples' lives, as opposed to a trendy issue on university campuses" ("Just Stop It," by Julie Polter, March-April 2001). One way to accomplish this goal would be to connect the anti-globalization movement with the widespread, though often complacent, Christian morality that is well established in American life.

Why bring the Situationists into it? Where is a French avant-garde artistic movement of the 1960s real to peoples' lives? Most Americans would be alternatively amused and repelled if they knew about the Situationists. Guy Debord, their guiding mind, set his hopes in an artistic avant-garde who would trigger a revolution by defacing billboards, and he lost all hope when it did not materialize. Klein tells us that they have "a great aeshetic and sense of play and theater." Did the Selma to Montgomery march succeed because it had "a great aesthetic and sense of play and theater"? And why bring Rage Against the Machine into it? They are even less suitable as an inspiration for a Christian politics. A movement that takes its cue from avant-garde artists, punk rock bands, and anarchists is not a model for Christian politics.

Duncan Vinson
Providence, Rhode Island

FBOs and the Constitution

I WOULD LIKE TO be able to give full support to Jim Wallis' position in favor of "faith-based initiatives" ("The Conscience of the State," March-April 2001), but I am troubled by his seeming dismissal of the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state. I am struck by the glaring absence in his analysis of the absence of guarantees that faith-based organizations will not be tempted to make membership or allegiance to an organization's doctrines a litmus test for eligibility for assistance. Yes, we need to explore new and more creative ways of' eradicating poverty, but we also need to consider the price to be paid.

Scott Ogilby
North Little Rock, Arkansas

Moral Knowledge

THE RELIGION vs. science debate reflected in the March-April 2001 issue ("Dear Darwin ... Love, God," by Joseph Wakelee-Lynch) spurs me to write that I just don't see the conflict. Science only catalogs and investigates what happens around us. Religion addresses humanity's aspiration to know and understand God, to discern morals, ethics, and meaning. Science can define gravity, predict an eclipse, and measure the movements of stars, but science cannot nourish a soul needing forgiveness, provide courage to face life's difficulties, or answer the question, "Why be good?" For these, the wise turn to God. Science may satisfy our curiosity, but a relationship with God nourishes the soul.

Nathaniel Batchelder
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Where the Onus Lies

IT WAS REFRESHING to read conservative Republican Bob McLalan's article ("How I Changed My Mind," March-April 2001) concerning reparations for African Americans. However, I was disheartened when McLalan ended his piece with "it may be impossible to find a way to compensate African Americans ..."--placing the onus on the government to redress the historical and present injustices done to African Americans.

Instead, perhaps McLalan, and others who recognize and accept the need for reparations, could seek to engage in a ministry such as mentoring African-American youth at risk of being prime candidates for the neochattel slavery called the American prison system. I am talking about compensation being paid out by the individual; compensation does not have to be monetary in nature. It should not be a burdensome task to correct a social ill by sharing one's knowledge base with the uninformed. It is easy to point a finger, yet it is easier to lend a hand.

Michael Pass
Ossining, New York

The writer is incarcerated at Sing-Sing prison and is a graduate of the New York Theological Seminary Program Class of 2000.

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