Letters

From the May 2004 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

Tim Cavanaugh's review of the new Madalyn Murray O'Hair biography ("In God's Country," February) was interesting, if not especially perceptive. I am interested, however, in his rather strong and gratuitous characterization of Martin Luther as "a churlish priest and an anti-Semite even by the standards of his day." I wonder what basis he has for this statement: Is it his own research into Luther, or his reliance on questionable secondary and tertiary sources?

I suspect Cavanaugh was exposed to materials demonizing the man during his formative years in Catholic school. But a review of some of Luther's writings will reveal him as a highly principled lawyer and professor of theology as well as a loving pastor, friend, and parent -- certainly less churlish and anti-Semitic than was typical of the Roman Church of his day.

Richard G. Lehrer
Dyer, IN

Tim Cavanaugh replies: Much as I'd like to blame all my adult failings on a lousy parochial education, the quality of religious instruction at Blessed Sacrament School was in fact so poor that we learned little even about Catholic doctrine, let alone the beliefs of Protestant schismatics. I was well out of grammar school before I realized that when people referred to "Martin Luther" they weren't using a familiar name for Martin Luther King. Luther's letter "On the Jews and Their Lies," I think, is a pretty damning document. It's certainly possible that many or most Christians at the time shared Luther's anti-Jewish sentiments, but few or none were as prolific -- and prescriptive -- in making their feelings known.

Every Man a Demiurge

Jesse Walker's "Every Man a Demiurge" (February) traces the rise and demise of an entertainment genre depicting reality as an illusion or simulation. A similar genre also had a smaller rise and fall during that time: the idea that our universe is but one of many in a multiverse, in which alternate universes are identical to ours up to a certain point but then diverge. Such alternate histories have been around for a while, such as in the collections edited by Greg Benford. In the '90s on television there was Sliders, with worlds in which the dinosaurs lived into modern times, the American Revolution never took place, or population control was enforced through soft drinks containing birth control chemicals and lotteries for killing off people.

On the movie screen there was Sliding Doors, where in one universe the protagonist just misses a subway train, while in another she just barely catches it. In the latter she arrives home to find her mate in bed with another woman; in the former the other woman leaves before her arrival, leading to very different consequences.

Sliders, being a series, exhibited the same decay Walker notes in the "illusion" genre. Later episodes focused on fighting the evil Kromaggs in chases across the universes, which themselves no longer had any remarkable distinguishing features, except that sorcery seemed to work in some of them. Such seems to be the inevitable down slope of popular series.

Charles Kluepfel
Bloomfield, NJ

CORRECTION: In "Injustice By Default" (February), Raegan Phillips was misidentified as Raegan "Kelly," and the article incorrectly stated that Taron James frequently flies to Sacramento, when in fact he drives.

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