Carol Zaleski replies

Christian Century, Jan 30, 2002

I regret that William Schweiker finds his meaning misrepresented. It was not my intention to portray him, anachronistically, as an Enlightenment rationalist. If I seemed to do so, this was partly my own clumsiness and partly an editing glitch that turned past tense to present tense in a sentence that characterized Enlightenment intellectuals as having proposed a rationalist religion.

I do think, however, that one hears echoes of such Enlightenment thought in Professor Schweiker's criticism of "revelationalism" on the part of some Muslims, Jews, Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants. A careful engagement with traditions should include--I'm sure Professor Schweiker would agree--willingness to take even "ultraconservative'' traditionalists seriously on their own terms.