More than a week has passed since Julie McDonald-Smith favored readers with her latest diatribe against “progressives,” claiming all of them plot doggedly to destroy our nation from within. As usual, several astute readers pointed out the errors in her historic cites, confusing 17th-century autocratic colonialism with 18th-century Deism. Is she nostalgic for Calvinist predestination that would have excluded the faithful at Holy Martyrs from the possibility of eternal life and treated Native Americans, blacks and women as lesser beings? Does she seek the elect that Edwards and Mather preached were chosen for salvation? Should all other views be excluded like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson?

Some Sunday, instead of reading the Federalist Papers mostly composed by the capitalist autocratic Alexander Hamilton, she might read the ethical principles of Jesus collected by Jefferson after editing out the “God-fearing” admonitions and superstitions he rejected. She might read the papal encyclical of Pope Francis that speaks eloquently of human free will and the responsibility we all share for the nurture of creation.

Robert Libby
Chebeague Island


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