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_______________A CONVERSATION WITH JONATHAN POLLARD BY WALTER RUBY (11/30/98)
	Jonathan Pollard was convicted of a treasonous offense: spying against the United States, betraying his country by using his high-level clearance to funnel U.S. secrets to Israel. Pollard was lucky to merely get a life sentence for an offense which is often punished by death. Your article seems to brush this off as a minor point while playing up the idea that not releasing him from prison is merely some sort of partisan political game. It may well be that the politicians are playing such a game but that does not change the fact that Pollard committed treason and rightly belongs in jail. -- Tom Biggs
_______________ ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY BY ALAN WOLFE (11/25/98)
	In brief but studied response to those writers who took offense to Alan Wolfe's piece on self-styled conservative "Christian" politics: I am always astounded by the extent to which the "Christian" conservative will twist the words of his or her Savior to embrace political positions that Jesus himself would reject out of hand -- the first of which is political activism! Christ tells us that his kingdom is in heaven; conservative "Christian" political activists have demonstrated time and again that they will embrace any falsehood and engender any division and hatred between their fellow citizens to achieve their own "kingdom" here on earth. As their justification they quote (generally out of context, both cultural and spiritual) not the words of Christ, but those of one of his "interpreters," generally Paul (not surprisingly, a Roman ex-bureaucrat), whose efforts to organize the then-young, persecuted sect with mere survival in mind have given every theological/ideological institution with a lust for temporal power since his day a convenient rationale to ignore the true spiritual message Jesus brought. Today's politically conservative "Christians" (and, mind you, these are far different from the many well-meaning spiritually conservative Christians who are rightfully offended when lumped together with such hypocrites and snake-oil salesman) represent the darkest perversion of Christ's teaching imaginable. Do you want to look on the face of the antichrist? Look no further than the hatred, intolerance and lust for temporal power evidenced in every word and action of the faux-religious right. -- Dave Gordon Chelsea, Vt. I thought Alan Wolfe's article on the so-called Christian right was excellent. Contrary to common and mistaken belief, this country was not founded by orthodox Christians, and part of what makes America great is the diversity of beliefs: Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Wiccan, as well as atheism and agnosticism. The idea of a theocracy under the likes of Pat Robertson is truly frightening to me, and not just because I happen to be an agnostic. I noticed how several letter writers complained about the "intolerance" expressed toward Christian conservatives. You reap what you sow. The sooner Christian conservatives accept that they don't have a monopoly on wisdom, truth or righteousness, and express tolerance for other forms of faith as well as non-faith, the sooner they will get tolerance in return. -- Shelley Ruble Campbell, Calif. SALON | Dec. 3, 1998

R E C E N T L Y+| PRYOR KNOWLEDGE BY JILL NELSON

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