For the benefit of readers who don’t ordinarily see the Waterbury Republican, I am providing below the text of a letter that appeared in the October 9 issue of that paper. It would probably have been more useful in a Kansas newspaper, but I don’t have access to the press in that territory.

Dear Editor:

One of the most amazing aspects of the presidential campaign, it seems to me, is the ability of evangelical Christians to rally behind candidates who stand behind podiums on which is inscribed “Country First.”

John McCain has never been baptized so his cluelessness about faith is not surprising. But Sarah Palin is a member of an evangelical congregation and ought to know better. If country is first, God must be second or third, and a God who us second or third is not God. Call it blasphemy, call it idolatry; it is not a statement with which any person of faith can be comfortable.

George Bush, for all his faults, went to Yale where they still sing, “For God, for country, and for Yale” so it seems unlikely he would ever have said, “Country First.” But John McCain does. As one who has always tried to put God at the center of my life, this frightens me.

Whatever their reasons for avoiding the title “America First,” with its echoes of isolationism and anti-semitism, “Country First” seems like an appeal to the same narrow mind set that puts religion in one compartment and politics in another. But faith is all or it is nothing. If country comes first, it has become a false god. How can anyone – Christian, Jew, or Moslem – whose faith is central to their life be comfortable supporting a man and woman who so blatantly advertise that faith is not central to them?

Christopher L. Webber