fray of the day

An interesting discourse on Slate's Fray Watch today...here's an excerpt:

"For all the black days in the interwoven history of Church and politics, it might behoove Hitchens to recall that revolutions inspired by atheist appeals to "reason" racked up a far bigger body count in the 20th Century than either Osama Bin Laden or Eric Rudolph could ever hope to achieve. Lenin. Stalin. Mao. Pol Pot. Not a choir boy among them.Modern secular liberalism is built upon the principles of Enlightenment humanism, but it is also a rather clear, linear outgrowth from the more radical aspects of the Christian message. When Germans beat their swords into plowshares, learned to love their neighboring nations, and built social services to care for their citizens, they were led not by secular revolutionaries, but by a party known as the Christian Democrats. When Abolitionists railed against slavery, and when Civil Rights marchers challenged the hierarchy of racism, they were led by Christian ministers. The very core of modern Western Civilization is composed of a trust in reason and science, tempered by a faith in the values of peace, compassion, and brotherly love, and a humility regarding our role in the universe that precludes absolutism."