Rand the Living

Chris Matthew Sciabarra from the November 1995 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

While there's no doubt that Rand's opposition to conservatism was tied to her atheism, it is also true that Rand did not hate conservatives simply because they were religious. In fact, what comes through in the letters is anything but an "in-your-face" atheistic militancy. She remarks to Sylvia Austin, a fan, that, "Jesus was one of the first great teachers to proclaim the basic principle of indi vidualismthe inviolate sanctity of man's soul, and the salvation of one's soul as one's first concern and highest goal...."

But such a principle could not be served by the Christian's altruist code of morality that de manded the sacrifice of the self for the welfare of others. This tragic internal contradiction led, in Rand's view, to continuous civil wars between sects and nations, and within each believer's soula civil war between the right of a person to exist for his or her own sake, and the alleged "duty" of that person to live an ostensibly "Christian" lifestyle.

In politics, today's Christian conservatives often seem to exhibit the tensions of this unresolved contradiction. They are torn between the individualist principles of Jesus and the notion that the state must make people moral. On the one hand, they sense the need for greater individual self-responsi bility. But on the other hand, they would willingly undermine the individual's autonomy by seeking state enforcement of their own moral precepts. It was this conservative attempt to enforce Christian dogma that Rand condemned as an affront to liberty.

Thus, while one will find in Rand's letters surprising tolerance in her intellectual exchanges with serious religious thinkers, one will also find an unabashed opposition to the linking of religion and politics. Undeniably, she opposed religious notions such as Original Sin, as well as religious figures such as Father Charles Coughlin and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. But her most trenchant criti cism is reserved for religious institutions such as the Catholic Church, which she likened to the Soviets, except that the Church sought "a form of Statism run by the Churchwhich simply means that [they] hope[d] for a return of the days of the Inquisition." And despite her initial support for the future Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Barry Goldwater, she warned him in 1960 that she considered the conservative attempt to integrate religion and politics a moral abomination.

Twenty years later, in one of her final letters, Rand reaffirmed that she was not a "conserva tive," but a "radical for capitalism." The woman who had initially befriended many on the Old Right was now telling television producer John E. Marshall that she rejected the New Right, with its anti -abortion stance and its assault on individual freedom.

In an age characterized by resurgent religious fervor on the right, Rand's letters retain relevance, especially for those of us who puzzle over the link between "free minds and free markets." While scholars such as myself would enjoy seeing all of Rand's extant correspondence in completely unedited form, this masterful collection remains required reading for anyone even remotely inter ested in the history of American social and political thought, as well as the future of individual liberty.