[W]ith like-minded people one cannot discuss. With like-minded people one can only participate in a church service, and, as is widely known, I do not… - Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Right now, there are two extremes in Christianity, both of which are a liability to Western civilization. The first consists of those who damn the existence of other groups. They take the Bible literally and reject scientific explanations for the existence of man and nature in the name of “intelligent design.” Such fundamentalist Christian groups invest a lot of time and energy in converting people. But much of what they preach is at odds with the core principles of the Enlightenment. At the other extreme are those who would appease Islam—like the spiritual head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who holds that the implementation of Shari’a in the UK is inevitable. Those who adhere to a moderate, peaceful, reformed Christianity are not as active as the first group or as vocal as the second. They should be.

Certainly much nonsense passes for culture in the United States, including an obsession with celebrities of all kinds. But that is scarcely representative of the vast wealth of extraordinary art, literature, and music produced by Americans in the almost two and a half centuries of the country’s existence.

The liberation of women is like a vast, unfinished house. The west wing is fairly complete….
Go to the east wing, however, and what you find is worse than unfinished.