Letters

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Disturbing Trends

Thank you for your candid and brave piece about the uneasy place of personal faith in a secular setting such as Middlebury (“Of Faith and Reason,” winter 2007). Too often this is the white elephant in the room that everyone sees and no one wants to talk about—this in a setting that professes openness to all perspectives and passions. Most clarifying were the terms that Stanley Fish proposed: are we talking around the edges of religion at an arm’s length, as a subject of curiosity, or taking it seriously, as a candidate for truth that can’t be construed from other disciplines? That is the essential question.

Finally, on the very day when I read “Of Faith and Reason” in your fine magazine, I noticed an Associated Press story underscoring the urgency of the subject. “Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study,” it stated. “Five psychologists worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.”

Absent seriously engaging religion on campus and without its high ceilings beyond the isolated self’s narrow version of truth, count on the disturbing trend to continue. Frankly, that is reason enough to advance the conversations on religion you so helpfully broached.

Dale Rosenberger P’ 09
Yarmouth Port , Massachusetts

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Take the Gloves Off

While reading “Of Faith and Reason” (winter 2007), I kept waiting for some mention of voices at Middlebury who would reject many of the fundamental assumptions reflected in the article. Are there professors or students or people occupied with “student life” at Middlebury who hold that “faith,” i.e., believing things without evidence or contrary to available evidence, is not a virtue but is in fact incompatible with genuine intellectual integrity? Does anyone defend the notion that “different faith traditions” getting people—especially young children—to believe in such absurdities as virgin births, ascents into heaven, and adventures with angels undermines all that separates the mind of a critical thinker from the phantasmagoria of the National Enquirer? Does anyone question the notion—apparently taken for granted in much of the activity reported in the article—that we can assume a foundational link between religion and ethics/morality?

Most decent people have the ability to distinguish between right and wrong without reliance on religious dogma, which is why they can read the Old Testament and be outraged by its views on women, slavery, and punishment, or the New Testament’s nonchalant condemnation of large numbers of people to eternal torture. As Plato’s Socrates pointed out long ago (Euthyphro 10-11), the gods favor the good because it is good; it is not the case that the good is good because the gods favor it. Ethics/morality is not intrinsically tied to religion.

No one can be opposed to studying about religion: its history, sociology, anthropology, psychology. But the claims of religion to truth and authority cannot be accepted without rigorous critical scrutiny. In the fuzzy atmosphere of “interfaith dialogue” and “spirituality”—apparently enthusiastically encouraged and handsomely underwritten at the College—religion seems to get a free ride with respect to its pretensions to intellectual and moral respectability. Undoubtedly there are people at Middlebury who are critical of the whole enterprise of religion. I would urge the editors to make their views known. Are there courses where students read works by lucid critics of “faith” like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris? Are there forums that welcome real “gloves off” examinations—rather than the usual deferential pabulum—of religion? Is anyone at Middlebury openly and explicitly critical of the pretensions of religion? If so, let’s hear about them!

Richard Hogan ’ 67
Fairhaven , Massachusetts

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Our Cultural Vacuum

I immediately thought of Middlebury—and specifically the winter 2007 magazine story “Of Faith and Reason”—when I recently read the following passage from The Iraq Study Group Report: “All of our efforts in Iraq, military and civilian, are handicapped by Americans’ lack of language and cultural understanding. Our embassy of 1,000 has 33 Arabic speakers, just six of whom are at the level of fluency.”

The vacuum of cultural understanding and linguistic skill at the heart of the American enterprise in Iraq, and more broadly in the Middle East, urgently needs to be filled. Middlebury has the resources to meet the linguistic needs of our government. Now I read that religious study is taking off with new vigor. Serious study of Islam will take students a long way toward cultural understanding of Iraq and the Middle East.

Religion is the central focus of the Islamic world’s conflict with the West. The life and thought of the Middle East, and the West’s trouble with and interest in the Middle East, is inexplicable without an adequate understanding of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That adequate understanding apparently is lacking in all of our current political leaders, and seemingly in our entire society, with the exception of a tiny number of scholars.

Religion is one of the key elements of the American way of life, for better and for worse. Reactionary religion is the driving force of those who would censor our schools and libraries and create intellectual malformations in our children. Distortion of the Bible is the excuse for the willful ignorance of a powerful minority in our society.

That 39 percent of Middlebury’s incoming student body declares no religious preference, as reported in Matt Jennings’s excellent article, clearly demonstrates that Middlebury is not a microcosm of society, contrary to statements elsewhere in the magazine. The Harris Poll states, “79 percent of Americans believe there is a God, and that 66 percent are absolutely certain this is true. Only 9 percent do not believe in God, while a further 12 percent are not sure.”

Middlebury students need education in religious thought and conflict if they are to serve society as leaders. I congratulate the College for taking this challenge seriously.

Daniel J. Urbach ’82
Portland , Oregon

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Faith Is Beyond Discussion

There was much in Matt Jennings’s article “Of Faith and Reason” that had me grumbling in agnostic indignation, but I’ll limit my commentary to a few points and begin by simply pointing out the irony of any faith-oriented organization (or writer) calling for an intellectual environment where “boundaries are stretched, beliefs challenged, and an ethos of inquiry embraced.” By its very definition, faith demands the unquestioning opposite. Perhaps the language of religion is a “conversation stopper” for nonbelievers on campus because ultimately faith is beyond discussion.

Religion is a fine thing for many people. Its various forms of practice should be welcomed, even encouraged, as part of campus life. Academically, its history, art, and thought should be taught—as it was in my time at Middlebury—in the context of world history, art, and philosophy (and science and psychology and anthropology). However, I think Middlebury would serve a greater good if the focus of its curriculum were to provide a framework for students to develop a “moral compass” without relying on 2,000-year-old creation and salvation myths.

The writer appears to bemoan it, but I find it praiseworthy that Middlebury has more than twice the national percentage of freshmen who indicate they have no religious preference, and I hope that after four years at the College the percentage will be even higher.

Peter Holm ’86
Waterbury Center , Vermont

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Blog Appreciation

I read with great interest “Of Faith and Reason” by Matt Jennings in the winter 2007 issue. If my memory is accurate, religion was a “conversation stopper” during my years at Middlebury (1959–63). I am very happy that it is a conversation starter now. I remember the days of compulsory chapel, when the chapel sermons were very secular. And I remember the days when there was really no one I could find on campus who would share their faith concerns with me.

Paradoxically the nonreligious intellectual atmosphere at Midd made me anxious to learn more about my own faith tradition, Roman Catholicism, so much so that I became a Roman Catholic priest in 1970. But I believe that my Middlebury education also kept the spirit of inquiry alive in me to the extent that I left the Roman Catholic fold to become a conservative Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor some years later.

My real reason for writing, however, is to commend Karina Arrue ’07, whose blog, Upsurge, I read about in the Jennings article. I have read Ms. Arrue’s interviews with Middlebury people of diverse religious backgrounds, as well as her reflections on how she integrates her faith with the other ethnic, intellectual, social, spiritual, and purely personal dimensions of her student life. Her writings are so insightful that I have recommended them to friends who are involved in campus ministry.

Roger Newton ’ 63
Philadelphia , Pennsylvania

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The Dark Age of Fear

It is important that the College community engage the question, “Does God Exist?” (winter 2007). The phenomenon of recent bestsellers such as The End of Faith by Sam Harris and Why Christianity Must Change or Die by Bishop John Shelby Spong is surely not a coincidence in light of “culture wars” that have contributed to a polarized American politics and the Middle Eastern conflict, which can be seen as a clash of religious fundamentalisms—Jewish, Islamic, and, not least, Christian.

I think it’s time to examine our notions of faith when a prominent Christian fundamentalist can be seen on television proclaiming in violent imagery and with gusto to a large and rapt audience that he is ready to “blow away” his Islamic enemies. It is time to examine our notions of “Judeo-Christian” values when a former candidate for president of the United States and president of the “Christian” Family Research Council, declares on Sunday morning news that the tragic figure of a heroin-addicted youth is, in fact, the devil and should be locked away in prison for life.

And, I think it’s time to examine the theistic image of God, the paternal father figure up in the sky, when President George W. Bush explains to Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, that, as president, he took the U.S. to war with Iraq at the beckoning of God. My God wasn’t supportive of an invasion of Iraq.

Isn’t this theistic God the product of magical thinking in a dark age of fear and ignorance, adopted to explain the unknown at a time before science and reason? If we embrace the notion of a theistic God, always there to intervene, to make things right if we’re righteous, and as a convenient rationalization for our actions, then it would seem we are freed of any obligation to take responsibility for those actions.

By all means, carry on this discussion of “Faith and Reason” at Middlebury. The clash of those ideals is a major historical force with which today’s students will have to come to terms. As for me, I will continue to embrace the wisdom of Jesus, the man, as well as the mysteries of the spirit.

Dave Brautigam ’ 69
Huntington , Vermont

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Recommended Reading

Your cover story, “Of Faith and Reason,” caught my eye, especially with the cover heading, “Does God Exist?” Unfortunately, I was completely misled by the scrawl on the board. There is no mention whatsoever of the existence or non-existence of a Creator Being.

As an atheist, I am quite shocked to read that Harvard is contemplating the incorporation of religion as required study. On the other hand, it is also enlightening to find that Middlebury is “areligious” and even antireligious.

For readers to get a different viewpoint from Matt Jennings’s one-sided assessment of the benefits of religion, I recommend Richard Dawkins’s new book, The God Delusion.

Gerald Lunderville, M.A. Spanish, ’ 69
Long Beach , California

Admittedly a casual reader of your magazine, I nonetheless found myself wondering about editorial choices—how you decide what to include and what to omit, or what perspective to take.

For example, I asked myself whether or not the discussion of religion (“Of Faith and Reason,” winter 2007) was illuminated by the unrelated question—“Does God Exist?”—promiscuously scrawled across the cover.

Similarly, in the piece on John G. Roberts Jr. (“Hail to the Chief”), I wondered how the inclusion of a young woman’s assessment of the man—“What a babe”—served your purpose.

Kindly enlighten me.

George Viglirolo, M.A. English ’71
Boston, Massachusetts

Editors’ Note: We apologize to those readers who were confused by the cover of the winter issue. In choosing an image of a student writing “Does God Exist?” on a blackboard to illustrate our cover story, “Of Faith and Reason,” we wanted to address a primary question brought up in the story: Is religion a conversation stopper at Middlebury? It was never our intention to address the question “Does God Exist?” What we wanted to know was this: Is Middlebury a place where such a query can be discussed?

Although no great fan of Bill Clinton, I was stunned by the grotesque caricature of him that the magazine chose to run alongside its announcement that the former president will be delivering the Commencement address at Middlebury this year (“Hail to the Chief, Part 2,” winter 2007). You’ve invited the guy to give a speech and receive an honorary degree (no doubt with an eye to the publicity you’ll gain by his presence on campus)—at least have the courtesy to show him a little respect when you tell people he’s coming.

Karen Freund ’ 84
Algonquin, Illinois

You have got to be kidding me. Former president Bill Clinton will address the graduating class of 2007, and the College will bestow upon him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (“Hail to the Chief, Part 2”)?

That’s right. A president who found himself entangled in impeachment proceedings. A president who has visited the public depths of marital infidelity. A president who pardoned 150-plus prisoners in the last days of his presidency and acted like the Beverly Hillbillies in “accidentally” packing $400,000 worth of antique treasures from the White House, something that he eventually returned after pleading first ignorance, then accident.

So, I ask, are these the new criterion necessary to attain the distinguished honorary Doctor of Humane Letters?

It’s not about being a Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, or part of any other political association. It’s about what Middlebury comprehensively represents as an institute of higher education, including its morals, values, and ethics dating back to its founding over 200 years ago. Of all the positive role models within this great country, or those within our extended global community, this is the best candidate the College could come up with to inspire, motivate, or portray as a true role model for our 2007 graduating class?

Members of the selection committee ought to be ashamed of themselves. Better yet, rescind the invitation.

John M. Coates ’ 79
Arlington Heights , Illinois

In the winter 2007 issue of Middlebury Magazine, I noticed “Hail to the Chief, Part 2” indicating that Bill Clinton will deliver the 2007 Commencement address at Middlebury on May 27. Also, he will receive an honorary degree.

I am writing to express my concern over this selection. I would have preferred the College select a less polarizing, controversial, and more meritorious figure upon whom to bestow its honors. I realize there will be objections to my position, but as one with a long connection to the College—M.A. ’56 and D.M.L. ’74 French—and a contributor to the annual fund-raising campaigns, I feel the need to express my views.

Audrey Bratman Tarchine,
M.A. French ’ 56, D.M.L. French ’74
Catalina , Arizona

I was deeply disappointed by the faculty and student response to the endowed professorship honoring the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist (“Judging Rehnquist,” winter 2007). To characterize his positions as “hostile” to underrepresented groups demonstrated flawed reasoning and an appalling lack of understanding of the U.S. Constitution. As Chief Justice he cast one of nine votes. His only power was that of persuasion. His legal philosophy/interpretation may not have benefited minorities, but he did not write hostilely of minorities.

Chief Justice Rehnquist was a conservative. I disagree with many of his decisions because his reasoning violated a core principle of conservatism, the rights of the individual over those of the state. I believe his strong advocacy for the separation of powers, the cornerstone of our democracy, may prove to be his most enduring legacy. Chief Justice Rehnquist was a powerful intellect and a serious student and writer of history. Indeed, these are the attributes that qualify his memory on an academic campus, and Middlebury College should be proud to be the recipient of this endowed chair.

For the record, I find the idea insulting that the administration will work with student leaders to create an endowed professorship of the student choosing as a sort of offset. With all due respect to the pious community, I think Middlebury would be better served by a Constitution Awareness month than a Religious Awareness month.

Hugh L. Spitzer ’ 58
Bethesda , Maryland

President Ron Liebowitz is to be congratulated for finally drawing a line in the sand and standing up to the Middlebury College staff and student body who comprise the liberal community and who sought to create an endowed professorship catering to their own ideas (“Judging Rehnquist,” winter 2007). As President Liebowitz stated, it “diminishes, quite ironically, the very thing it seeks—the institution’s commitment to diversity.”

Claus Mueller ’ 61
Issaquah , Washington

Reading of the death of Robert Stafford ’35 (Obituaries, winter 2007) took me back to the fall of 1943 when about 16 women moved into the Deke house, as most Middlebury men were in the service. Of course, we had to have a housemother, and Robert’s mother agreed to move up from Rutland, decamping to a sunny room on the south side of the building to serve in that capacity.
Mrs. Stafford was a lovely person who listened to our many concerns about brothers and boyfriends away at war, but I particularly recall her telling me many times how worried she was about her son Robert who was serving and perhaps commanding a ship in the Navy in the South Pacific. How proud she must have been in later years to know of all his achievements.

Barbara Busing Harris ’ 46
Laconia , New Hampshire

Professor Christopher Klyza glossed over one of the major accomplishments of Senator Stafford although he did mention it in passing (Obituaries, winter 2007). I am sure that the senator’s rise to the rank of lieutenant colonel, as stated by the good professor, is unique in the annals of the United States Navy. There have been many lieutenant commanders, but to my knowledge Stafford is the only lieutenant colonel!

Kimber Smith ’ 53

Johns Island, South Carolina

Learn the Ranks

I read with interest the obituary for Bob Stafford ’35 in the winter issue. Of particular note was that “he joined the Navy and rose to lieutenant colonel.” Bob and I were briefly in the same naval reserve unit, and I never saw him wear an Army or Marine Corps uniform. (The only two branches of the service that have that rank!) The editorial staff needs to take a course in the ranks of our fellow military men and women.

Rich Miner ’ 58

Commander, USNR (Ret.)

Falmouth , Massachusetts

Editors’ Note: Kimber Smith and Commander Miner are correct. Senator Stafford was a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, not a lieutenant colonel. We regret the error.

A Lasting Legacy

It is with deep sadness that I learned of the passing of Kim Sparks—professor, mentor, and friend (Obituaries, winter 2007). Herr Sparks has occupied a place of honor in my memory. In particular, I recall a winter term during sophomore year spent reading Rilke in his class, while longing for the ski slopes. Herr Sparks challenged me to move beyond my immediate interest in Mad River as well as my rudimentary understanding of Deutsche Grammatik—to consider the life of the mind as embodied in the ideas and language of such writers as Goethe and Dürrenmatt.

In 1981, I had the good fortune to spend two terms in Mainz, immersing myself in German literature and culture with the intellectual guidance of Kim and the support of his always-gracious wife Suzann. These moments, as well as others enjoyed in his Cornwall kitchen with fellow German students, have shaped my consciousness of the world at large and my place within it in more ways than I can express.

Glücklicher Reise, Herr Sparks.

Anne Bailey Burridge ’ 83
Newburyport , Massachusetts

Letters addressing topics discussed in the magazine are given priority, though they may be edited for brevity or clarity. On any given subject we will print letters that address that subject, and then in the next issue, letters that respond to the first letters. After that, we will move on to new subjects. Send letters to:

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