Editor:

Ray Rogers, in his 5/30/97 letter, asserts that I am "not just a harmless religious zealot" but rather, as a Christian who has become active in the public square, a genuine threat to "true intellectual freedom." Rogers expresses particular dismay that I am a member of a committee tasked with writing science performance standards for New Mexico public schools. It turns out I was drafted to serve on this committee last November, reluctantly on my part, to help balance the fact that members of the militant atheist New Mexicans for Science and Reason, including its president, were on the committee. The reality is that I am the token Christian/creationist in a group weighted heavily in the other direction.

Mr. Rogers, as if Monitor readers were not already adequately aware of my views, points out that I am an adjunct faculty member with the Institute for Creation Research. Yes, every other year I co-teach a graduate earth science course entitled "Earth Structures and Tectonics." Mr. Rogers then quotes extensively from the ICR statement of faith, which basically affirms the Bible is God-breathed and true. This is what Christians believe. I am sure most of the thousands of Christians in Los Alamos believe it. Most of the churches in Los Alamos include this central tenet in their statements of faith. And yes, I also believe the Bible is true and reliable. I would be pleased to share the logic and data that underlie my confidence in this document with anyone who might be curious.

The thing I find disturbing in Roger's letter is the not so subtle assertion that people who believe the Bible have no business expressing themselves in the realm of public policy. Mr. Rogers revealed this same utter contempt for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in January when he urged Sig Hecker to impose thought control in the Laboratory and censor those with creationist viewpoints. Let me remind Mr. Rogers that it was mostly earnest Christians, who according to the Bible believed in the fallenness of man and the evil lurking in every human heart, who drafted the Constitution and its Bill of Rights to seek a civil order with some semblance of human freedom. I challenge Mr. Rogers to point to any group of atheists who have drafted a comparable document that has served as well.

I further challenge Mr. Rogers to defend the record of atheist leaders on civil liberties over the last century. Did Lenin or Stalin or Hitler or Mao or Castro or Pol-Pot champion intellectual freedom, or freedom of any sort for that matter? No, it has been where the Bible has been believed that the sort of freedom Americans have enjoyed for so long has flourished. One reason is that Christians are under obligation, before God, to value highly every human being. Where in an atheist framework does one find such an imperative?

Is not a serious public apology is in order on Mr. Rogers' part for the blatant manner he has insulted the Christians in this community and, even worse, ridiculed God Himself as well as His Word, the Bible?

John Baumgardner