Until a few years ago, Carol Thiessen, who edits CT’S Letters column, would pray for mail. As each deadline approached, she wondered how she would fill the space.
But no longer. Our average mail response of 100+ letters to each issue gives her a different challenge: selecting and condensing letters to represent reader response proportionally.
Two topics are guaranteed to multiply our mail carrier’s load: gender roles and the politics of abortion. J. I. Packer’s 1991 essay on the ordination of women garnered a record 79 responses. But the flood of anti-abortion letters following a 1992 interview on the environment with Sen. Al Gore topped that. At this writing, Philip Yancey’s “Breakfast with the President” column is rivaling those records.
Many who protested the interview with Gore suggested that we give equal time to Dan Quayle. How had they missed the interview with Quayle published just three months earlier?
Our evenhandedness (on political, not moral, matters) has been noted by academicians. Scholars from the University of Houston analyzed the political content of four religious magazines over several decades. They contrasted the largely apolitical CT with the Christian Century—once so partisan it temporarily lost its tax-exemption.
In this issue, we continue our efforts at that historic balance: Philip Yancey reports on the puzzling relationship between Bill Clinton’s faith and his controversial policies (p. 24); while conservative columnist Cal Thomas speaks against trickle-down morality (p. 12) and policy analyst Merrill Matthews promotes an alternative to the Clinton health plan (p. 10).
Carol is awaiting your letters.
DAVID NEFF, Executive Editor
