Dear George,

I spent all of September in France. In our neighborhood we saw ruined Catahar castles and other reminders of the persecution of the Cathars by the powerful Christians of the time. They said God was on their side. Not far from where we lived was the town of Foix where one of my ancestors, Jean Gaston, le Comte de Foix, lived. He was persecuted by the dominant Christian group as were his children. Like other Hugenots, they were driven out of France by Christians claiming to be doing God's work.

When I was a boy in southern Alabama I heard about Alabama Christians persecuting and sometimes lynching their fellow Alabamians because they were black. Their religious raiment was bed sheets and pointy hats; they lit Christian crosses, and read from the Bible to prove that what they did was God's will. When I moved to Virginia the politicians and the preachers told us God didn't want the black children to go to school with the white children. The politicians closed the schools to see that it wouldn't happen. They told us God was on their side.

I was in France on September 11 when I learned about people blowing themselves up in the name of their god, whom they call Allah, so they could kill as many people as possible who don't believe what they believe. When I got back home about the first thing I heard was that "man of god" Jerry Falwell said gays and lesbians, abortionists and feminists, and other unsavories loose in the land "helped this happen" because of their ungodly ways. I wondered if he meant to say that his god and bin Laden's were working in tandem. Now Palestinians and Jews bomb each other with renewed ferocity, both invoking the word of their gods as justification.

If all of this sounds irreverent that's because it is. I have no reverence whatsover for all the millions of leaders and followers throughout history, right up to now, who do terrible deeds in the name of whatever "god" they profess to believe in. You remember that when Dr. Johnson said that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" he was criticizing scoundrels, not patriotism. I'd like to expand his aphorism to say that religion is also a favorite refuge of scoundrels. And, like Dr. Johnson, I would mean to condemn scoundrels, not religion. Scoundrels wrapped in the raiments of patriotism and religion are dangerous folk, enemies of the very things they profess to champion. We need to beware of them both abroad and at home.

My religious heroes are people like my father-in-law, the Anglican priest who married me; Henry Mitchell, formerly of Trinity Church here, who showed us how to apply Christian principles to the whole of humanity; Will Campbell, who used to preach to Klansmen and civil rights folk alike; and women and men far beyond counting who never said their god told them people of different beliefs should be despised, persecuted, or killed.

Paul Gaston (electronic mail, December 6, 2001).