The Los Angeles Times‘ Tim Rutten doesn’t like the religious right.

That’s not surprising given where he works. But he lets his dislike hang out for all the world to see … in a book review.

In a review of Jon Meacham’s “American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation” — a piece so rabid that it belongs in Michael Hiltzik’s column — Rutten wonders where America has gone so “wrong:”

“(the book) leaves unanswered, however, the question of what has gone so stunningly wrong among a substantial and assertive minority of Americans nearly 200 years removed from the Sage of Monticello’s calm epiphany.

… Why do so many Americans want their children taught a 2,500-year-old poetic allegory of human origins instead of the science of evolutionary biology?

… Why are the rest of us being forced to accept some Americans’ personal decisions as an “interest” like any other that must be given its say and taken into account?”

Hasn’t it always been so? And on the flip side, how would Rutten feel if his (presumed) opposite beliefs weren’t taken “into account?” Or if they weren’t taught to his children?

We leave Rutten’s final sentence to stand on its own melodramatic feet:

“The unanswered question remains what to do when your neighbor is resolved to drag you out of evening’s golden half-light and into full darkness.”

Ugh.

—
From reviews elsewhere, including the new Newsweek, it sounds like Meacham’s book comes to the conclusion — unremarkable to anyone who’s delved into the period — that the Founding Fathers were deists, not Christ-focused literalists.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 5th, 2006 at 8:53 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Los Angeles Times. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.