To the Editor:
Re “Donald Trump, Pagan King,” by Leighton Woodhouse (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 13):
Mr. Woodhouse justly decries Donald Trump’s tyrannical policies as echoing those of the Athenians who exercised their brutal power over the Melians they had at their mercy, as recounted by Thucydides. But I disagree with his assertion that “it wasn’t until Christianity came along” that there was widespread avowal of human dignity, which was eventually codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
The Persian emperor Cyrus the Great, for example, who ruled in the sixth century B.C.E., abolished slavery and decreed freedom of religion. The Romans, too, articulated a concept of natural law in roughly the first century B.C.E., and many non-Christian leaders — like Gandhi, a Hindu — adhered to their religious heritage in defense of these values.
The ideal of human dignity has multiple roots and diverse champions.
Ronald Gross Great Neck, N.Y. The writer is the author of the book “Socrates’ Way.”
To the Editor:
Leighton Woodhouse’s essay portrays the pre-Christian world as one purely of domination and submission, but there were pagan virtues that we would do well to uphold today. Among them was xenia, the hospitality owed to immigrants and foreigners.
Xenia demanded that hosts feed, house and protect travelers. This obligation was so vital to the ancient Greeks that one title for the king of the gods was Zeus Xenios, who protected the rights of strangers and imposed justice on those who wronged them.
Meanwhile, today’s America has brought violence, deprivation and even death to those who ought to be treated reverently as our guests.
Diversity is inherent to modern paganism because one cannot believe in many gods without also accepting that there are many valid ways of worshiping and living. As the Christian right becomes more and more xenophobic, intolerant and nationalist, these pagan virtues are worth considering as ways to better live in a pluralistic society.
Eric O. Scott Belleville, Ill. The writer is an editor of The Wild Hunt: Pagan News and Perspectives.
To the Editor:
Leighton Woodhouse maintains that Judeo-Christian ethics are “he basis for the American Declaration of Independence.” But the opposite is true.
The radical principle of the Declaration is that the individual has rights — that each of us is an autonomous being, morally entitled to choose how to lead our lives without interference from any outside authority. This principle is what made Americans free and what led ultimately to the abolition of slavery.
Judeo-Christian ethics, however, deny that man is an autonomous being. They reject the idea that you should decide for yourself which goals and values to pursue. Rather, they demand that you subordinate yourself to the edicts of some supernatural authority. Your life belongs not to you, then, but to God.
And if God’s self-appointed spokesmen declare that God’s will is that women who refuse to wear the hijab be imprisoned or that heretics be burned at the stake or that homosexuals be stoned to death, a state that is consistently governed by religion will comply. The ethics of religion lead not to individual freedom but to the eradication of rights.
Peter Schwartz Naples, Fla. The writer is a distinguished fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.
To the Editor:
Athens used force to subjugate and destroy Melos. How did that turn out for Athens?
The Athenians lost the Peloponnesian War, and Sparta treated them the same way Athens had treated Melos — by imposing the Thirty Tyrants on them. Sparta’s turn came soon after, when its absolute power was stopped by Thebes.
Power appears omnipotent until it stumbles and leads to disaster. Pay attention, President Trump, Stephen Miller and all the others who have forgotten history.
Alec Pruchnicki New York
To the Editor:
In trying to bring out the true nature of Donald Trump’s presidency, Leighton Woodhouse makes the claim that the “moral instinct” that all humans have intrinsic value and are equal before God is of Judeo-Christian origin, which somehow managed to pervade the world. He writes, “Adherents of the world’s other great religions have largely integrated it into their ethical frameworks even if this tenet is not central to their faith.” This is both ignorant of history and condescending.
Several hundred years before Christ, philosophers in India — Gautama Buddha and Mahavira, to name just two — were already espousing sentiments that Mr. Woodhouse identifies: All creatures, not just humans, have intrinsic value and are connected to the whole, and all humans have the potential to attain enlightenment and liberation.
It is possible that Mr. Woodhouse’s motive was to merely paint the Trump administration as un-Christian — although it is already well known to be unkind, untruthful, unfair and unjust. The sweeping attempt to trace the world’s moral foundation to a single religion was unnecessary.
Baidurya Bhattacharya Newark, Del.
To the Editor:
Leighton Woodhouse’s essay offers a familiar Whig theory of history: Christianity matters not because God sent his son to save us from our sins, but because it worked a moral revolution. That revolution set humanity on the upward path of progress, liberation and equality, culminating in the modern liberal order. For Mr. Woodhouse, President Trump’s rejection of that order is thus a rejection of Christianity itself and a return to the supposedly brutish politics of antiquity.
This is bad history and bad theology. Pre-Christian ancients knew it was wrong to oppress the weak. Thucydides wrote the Melian Dialogue to illustrate the decline in Athenian political legitimacy after Pericles, not to endorse slaughter. And while I agree that Christianity has made the world a better place, this does not mean, as Mr. Woodhouse implies, that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other Western elite norms represent the eternal politics of Jesus.
Indeed, most Western elites reject the claims of Christian morality when it is imposed on their own conduct. The Trump administration’s realism, by contrast, at least has the virtue of being honest.
Michael Buschbacher Washington
To the Editor:
Leighton Woodhouse cites Tom Holland’s book “Dominion,” which posits that Christianity evolved from Judaism as a universal religion of love. This sort of anti-Judaism has been extensively studied by biblical scholars, as throughout history Christian thinkers struggled to assert their prior entitlement to the Jewish God.
Mr. Holland’s relatively mild claim is magnified by some evangelical groups to mean that Judaism was meant to disappear after giving rise to Christianity. An even bolder claim is made in the Gospel of St. John, when Jesus tells a group of Jews who reject him that their father is not Abraham but the Devil.
In fact, Christianity’s domination of the West was the result of conquest followed by conversion, just like Islam’s domination over Zoroastrianism, Byzantine Christianity and other religions throughout Asia.
Each conquering group claims moral superiority, but the idea of Christian moral superiority should not be published as if it were fact.
Philippa Gordon Brooklyn
The post Trump’s Sins Are His Own. Leave Pagans Out of It. appeared first on New York Times.
