Cut out the middlemen
From Damian Wilson Sir: The article on Keith Ward, the 'liberal theologian', interested me CA free market in religion', 11 September). I think the key statement was this one: 'The most important thing about me is not that I'm a Christian but that I'm a Western liberal. . . . ' Now, while I respect Christianity, 1 am not a practising Christian. But neither would I describe myself as a liberal. And I find that whichever way I look at this it seems to me to be an extraordinary statement for a priest to make. It immediately provokes the thought, 'Well, if when push comes to shove the Christian viewpoint is to give way to the liberal one, why bother with the Christian one at all?'
I recall the American philosopher who said that if Kant's moral philosophy helped one to understand Anna Karenina, then John Rawls 'does the same' for Fear of Flying. In other words, Kant had tried to produce rational arguments for Christian morality, since faith no longer seemed to be enough, but he failed, so that the current liberal solution, as epitomised by Rawls, is to retreat from the moral viewpoint.
As I say, I'm not disposed to take liberalism particularly seriously, but if I were why would I want to go to Keith Ward rather than, say, to John Rawls? Why have liberalism-and-water when I could take it neat? If the middleman is going to bolt when the going gets tough, then let's save time and cut him out now.
Damian Wilson
Eastbourne, East Sussex
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