Why this mixed marriage?
Good question.
Cynthia Tucker, liberal Atlanta-Journal Constitution columnist and always prepared to take a shot at the Religious Right blogged: Christian right deifies an athiest — Ayn Rand, and said,
But nothing is more surprising and more explicitly contradictory than their reverence for Rand, whose open contempt for Christianity ought to make her anathema among religious conservatives. It’s hard to imagine any prominent progressive saying similar things about religious faith without prompting a tsunami of complaint.But she's a lib Democrat.
How about evangelical Chuck Colson?
He said the "real problem with Rand is the world view her novels and other writings sought to inculcate in her readers … it's hard to imagine a world view more antithetical to Christianity"...Colson said Rand and her followers were precisely the types of "cranks" and "crypto-cultists" that his friend Bill Buckley had fought to purge from conservative ranks.How about Southern Baptist Richard Land?
A lot of people go through an Ayn Rand phase,” said Richard Land, who heads the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “Hopefully, they get over it.”At the moment the best source for critical comments on Ayn Rand and her conservative Christian acolytes are liberal commentators and sites. An Ethics Daily story gives some good relevant quotes.
Sure, I suppose you could make a case for picking some Rand, leaving a lot, and sanitizing the rest but I'd at least make note of exactly where and how far we have to depart from her approach to life or even from government. One might start with Philippians 2:3:
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;
Glad to see Land make sense on Rand.
