Lack of charity.As a longtime fan of Barbara Ehrenreich's work, I was excited to see Eugene McCarraher's review of her latest book, Bait and Switch A deceptive sales technique that involves advertising a low-priced item to attract customers to a store, then persuading them to buy more expensive goods by failing to have a sufficient supply of the advertised item on hand or by disparaging its quality. ("Tighten Your Belts," January 13, 2006). Yet upon reading it, I was dismayed to find that McCarraher had seen fit to grace his copy with several gratuitous cheap shots at Protestants. The most unnecessary was his musing that "Sola scriptura and aesthetic banality [could be] brethren sides of a coin." In addition, rather than simply calling into question the usefulness of the so-called Protestant work ethic The Protestant work ethic, or sometimes called the Puritan work ethic, is a Calvinist value emphasizing the necessity of constant labor in a person's calling as a sign of personal salvation. , McCarraher chose to demonize de·mon·ize tr.v. de·mon·ized, de·mon·iz·ing, de·mon·iz·es 1. To turn into or as if into a demon. 2. To possess by or as if by a demon. 3. Calvinism generally, referring to it as "toxic residue," "tyrannical," and "heresy." Such language was particularly stunning in juxtaposition with the review appearing immediately prior ("Two-Thirds Catholic"), which celebrated "mutual affection Noun 1. mutual affection - sympathy of each person for the other mutual understanding sympathy - a relation of affinity or harmony between people; whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other; "the two of them were in close sympathy" and good will" between Catholics and Protestants. BOBBI DYKEMA KATSANIS Berkeley, Calif. |
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