Daniel Henninger's praise for the Vatican's unwavering commitment to a worldwide agenda of individual freedom (Dec. 30 Wonder Land, "Popes, Atheists and Freedom") concludes with his opinion that secularist arguments alone for freedom lack sufficient strength to stand against their current opposition. That's exactly what America's founders concluded in 1776 when they declared that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Then, as now, rights that are granted by men can be withdrawn by men when such rights prove to be inconvenient. Benedict XVI is carrying on the campaign against collectivist ideologies that John Paul and John Paul II courageously waged against the Soviet Union and its satellites. The common thread among all of yesterday's and today's enemies of individual freedom is a belief that such freedom works against a greater good, as defined by political leaders (in China, Russia and North Korea) or by religious leaders (in Iran and other Islamic states).
In view of the Vatican's staunch defense of personal liberty in recent decades, Mr. Henninger finds it odd that prominent atheists are working so hard to diminish Judeo-Christian belief. In fact, the primary assault on traditional Christianity isn't so much an anti-religion attack by atheists as it is a pro-collectivism crusade by progressives. The "common good" is a powerful catalyst for a leftist agenda in the U.S. and individual, God-given rights threaten that agenda.
Atheists who value their right to gripe about Christianity ought to thank God that they live in a land that is based on Judeo-Christian principles of tolerance and personal freedom.
Anders Smith
Durham, N.C.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 