THE MEANING OF WONDERWORKS
"The greatest miracle of all is our own existence. That alone should convince anyone of the reality of God."
Paul Rossi Cherry Hill, New Jersey
THE STATEMENT BY ONE EXPERT THAT the frequent occurrence of miracles in the U.S. today is comparable to Europe during the Middle Ages sent chills up my spine [Cover, April 10]. In those days people not only believed in miracles but also favored burning heretics and witches at the stake. Ignorance and untold misery were the legacy of the Middle Ages. If fundamentalists want to go back to that time, then let them go alone. History teaches that discarding reason and critical thinking in favor of religious superstition leads to death and misery.
Robert Sullivan West Newbury, Massachusetts
MIRACLES IN CHRISTIANITY DO POSSESS A historical character of salvation. They are not pieces of magic or show but rather serve to demonstrate the reality of faith to the community and the individual.
(The Rev.) Ulrich Nersinger Canon Regular of Klosterneuburg Klosterneuburg, Austria
YOUR STORY ATTEMPTED TO TRIVIALIZE the role of scholarly efforts like the Jesus Seminar in promoting honest public discussion of religious issues. You characterized me as a "onetime Protestant clergyman." I am the former head of the Society of Biblical Literature, a Guggenheim fellow and a senior Fulbright scholar. I have written a dozen books and more than 100 published articles and have taught at several well-respected universities. The Jesus Seminar Fellows are similarly downgraded to just "rebel scholars." The roster in The Five Gospels shows that the group includes some of the most accomplished biblical scholars of our time. You erroneously report that the Jesus Seminar found that Jesus did not rise from the dead. In fact, we concluded that the Resurrection of Jesus had nothing to do with what happened to his body. This is a distinction of some magnitude.
Robert W. Funk, Director Westar Institute Santa Rosa, California
AS ASSOCIATE MEMBERS OF THE JESUS Seminar, we attended three of its past four meetings. We are appalled at your treatment of this endeavor (by historians, not theologians) to counter the religious literalism and fundamentalism that are sweeping the world. Careful study of the Gospels finds therein many viewpoints not in harmony with one another. It has become clear that there were as many "denominations" at the beginning as there are now! The seminar's method of voting is a completely legitimate way to identify levels of consensus. The scholars are not out to debunk healings, miraculous or otherwise, but are advocates for religious literacy.
Stephanie Ince and Jerry Mattos Twentynine Palms, California
YOU ARE RIGHT TO HIGHLIGHT the growing abyss between scholars who debunk miracles and the faithful who believe in them. Either the professors are way off base or the populace is totally deluded. There is a way to resolve this cultural schizophrenia, but it demands intellectual honesty. We must face the implications of paranormal research, the missing link in this debate. Paranormal data make it a lot easier to accept that Jesus and other spiritually advanced beings did things that exceed what science understands to be human capacity. Once we take a hard look at the miracle of human potential, the debunkers and the faithful will both have to redesign their world view.
Michael Grosso Warwick, New York
THE PARAPHRASE OF MY REMARKS IMPLIED that I said New Testament writers distinguished between "flesh and spirit." While they do make this distinction, I intended to contrast flesh and body--an important if complex distinction. St. Paul speaks of the Resurrection of the body, not the Resurrection of the flesh, which for him was the seat of sin. He describes the Resurrection of the body as a "spiritual body" rather than a physical body (I Corinthians 15:44). In the last analysis, I am willing to remain agnostic about the precise form that Jesus' Resurrection took, as I implied to your interviewer. That the disciples and Paul recognized Jesus' presence with them is clear from their testimony. And, speaking personally, that Jesus was raised from the dead is central to my own faith.
Jackson W. Carroll, Professor Divinity School, Duke University Durham, North Carolina
IN MY VIEW THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS a miracle. There is only the fulfillment of natural law.
David C. McLeod Old Greenwich, Connecticut
PASSING THE CONTRACT
IN TRYING TO ENACT THEIR CONTRACT with America in 100 days [Congress, April 10], Republican members of Congress exhausted their minds, frayed their tempers and strained their family relationships under the relentless prodding of the Speaker of the House. When medieval monks were subjected to an ascetic life of physical and mental strain, they suffered from hallucinations. Perhaps Republicans have come to believe that Newt Gingrich is King of the U.S.
Raymond F. Dumalski Park Ridge, Illinois
IT HIT ME LIKE A TON OF BRICKS. SEEING Gingrich on TV brought back a youthful repressed memory of a story that disturbed me at an impressionable age and left an unanswered question. I was reminded of the Pied Piper. I understood the hiring of the piper to get rid of the rats and the refusal of the townspeople to pay him. The unanswered question was, "What happened to the children?"
Jack Kirschbaum Delray Beach, Florida
THE REPUBLICAN POLITICAL LEADERSHIP and those who accept its theories of returning wider powers to the states by deconstructing the Federal Government have forgotten their American history. This approach has been tried before and found wanting. Under the Articles of Confederation, the new nation attempted to operate as a loose alliance of the former colonies from 1781 to 1789. It was found to be so unmanageable (George Washington called it "little more than a shadow without the substance") that general dissatisfaction led to the creation and adoption of the Constitution, under which the U.S. has managed pretty well for a couple of centuries.
Robert Schnitzer Weston, Connecticut
HERE I THOUGHT I WAS DOING SO WELL, and now I find out I'm living in poverty. Congress says an income of $95,000 to $200,000 is middle class! There must be something in Washington's air or drinking water that gives even new members of Congress an unreal attitude toward money. The world looks on in amazement while the most powerful nation on earth actually believes that "trickle down" money from tax cuts will go anywhere except to the already rich.
Doris C. Baker Virginia Beach, Virginia
CARTER PRODUCES RESULTS
YOUR ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS A DISTURBING effort by the media to impugn the diplomatic work of Jimmy Carter [Diplomacy, April 10]. Does it matter whether he's an egomaniac or a legitimate prophet of peace? Since he is not representing a government, if he fails, it affects only his reputation. Under the influence of media cynicism, the public might forget the overriding fact of Carter's postpresidential activity: he succeeds.
David Weibel Union City, California
AT LEAST CARTER IS WORKING TOWARD a lasting peace, whereas the U.S. government stands back and criticizes his efforts. You should be applauding Carter's efforts, not denigrating them.
Ingrid N. Brown Newton, Kansas
JIMMY CARTER IS THE WILL ROGERS of goodwill ambassadors. He never met a dictator he didn't like.
Terry Fisher Pleasant Hill, California
BASEBALL AFTER THE STRIKE
THERE WILL BE BASEBALL IN HEAVEN. The replacement players will all be starters [Essay, April 10]. The fans will all have great seats, and the owners and the striking players will have to wait in line outside, praying for a ticket to the Game.
Kris Hansen Chicago
THE POINT IN THIS STRIKE, WHICH NEITHER side seemed to realize, is that the fans are important. Sure, it's nice to have a famous player electrify the crowd as he struts to the plate, but many of us would rather have a team of players energize us during the season.
Lisa Mejia Kansas City, Missouri
EVEN COWBOYS GET THE BLUES
THE MEDIA AND OTHERS ARE CONSTANTLY reminding the public what is and is not politically correct. Therefore, I was surprised to see the bold black headline "Cowboys in the cia'' on your report about Guatemalan activities by the cia [Guatemala, April 10]. You even spoke of a "cowboy mentality,'' referring to cia informants being linked to murders in Guatemala. For your information, "cowboy mentality" does not mean acting recklessly on one's own but behaving in a very responsible way. That's what makes cowboys good at their job. They alone are responsible for protecting cattle from predators. A cowboy mentality is a real asset, since it requires common sense no matter what the situation.
Dorothy M. Brandt Alamosa, Colorado
THAT PLACE CALLED CYBERSPACE
I READ WITH SOME AMUSEMENT YOUR special issue on cyberspace, the Internet and a brave new world [Spring 1995]. Then I took a walk by Salt Pond and Nauset Marsh, and as I watched a pair of Canada geese and a great blue heron, I wondered if nature writer Henry Beston would have spent a year on the Great Beach had he been hooked by cybermania. Who in the information age will have time to contemplate the changing seasons, the beauty of nature, the rhythms of our world while plugged into an artificial electronic world?
Jim Owens Eastham, Massachusetts
THERE'S AN ANGLE TO ONLINE JOURNALISM you missed. Newspapers that previously had small circulation because of the costs of newsprint and delivery are now read on the World Wide Web by thousands more than anyone had ever conceived. Student-run university newspapers, like ours, are a perfect example: people can read about what is really happening on campus at the click of a button, instead of depending on mainstream-media reports and glossy alumni magazines. Welcome to the media revolution.
Marshall Miller and Lockhart Steele Executive Editors The Brown Daily Herald Providence, Rhode Island
WHOSE COMMON SENSE?
YOUR DECONSTRUCTION OF PHILIP K. Howard's antiregulatory book, The Death of Common Sense, was right on [Ideas, April 10]. I seriously doubt that Howard wanted to dig too deep into the facts behind his sketchy anecdotes about regulatory mischief. He is working squarely in the tradition of other zealots who promulgate such tales to support their antigovernment agenda. Environmentalists have been sounding the alarm about such so-called horror stories for years, but tragically, these spurious accounts are being recycled into policymaking, and in some cases the falsehoods are retold even after the truth is known. Thank you for blowing the lid off.
Fred Baumgarten, Editor Audubon Activist National Audubon Society New York City
YOUR CRITIQUE OF HOWARD WAS OVERLY harsh. True, bureaucrats often score poorly in exercising power, but I'd far rather argue with a regulator who is enforcing broader and fewer rules than one with overly detailed regulations. The latter fears to stray from "going by the book'' lest he be taken to task for doing so. The former is more predisposed to listen to common sense interpretations of rules.
John G. Welles Denver
MARRIAGE CELEBRITY-STYLE
ACCORDING TO YOUR CHART ON THE longevity of marriages of celebrity couples [Chronicles, April 10], Catherine Howard and Henry VIII were married only 18 days. However, they were actually married for almost 18 months-from July 1540 until her execution in 1542.
Tiffany Taylor New Albany, Indiana
IF LIZ TAYLOR WAS WED TO HOTELIER Conrad N. Hilton for eight months, as your chart indicated, then how come that wasn't brought out back in 1951 during her well-publicized divorce from Conrad's son C. Nicholson (Nicky) Hilton Jr.? Could this explain why Hilton Sr. titled his 1957 memoir Be My Guest?
F. Peter Model New York City
CORRECTION
OUR STORY ON MEXICO'S ECONOMIC woes [March 6] included a chart showing the results of a Time/cnn poll of 1,000 Mexicans. A note on the methodology of the poll stated that it was taken by telephone. It was not. The polling was done in face-to-face interviews.