The mail.(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)

Congratulations to Dinesh D'Souza for his article "What's So Great About America" (April/May). It was comprehensive and insightful. There is one niche worth filling in, however.

Mr. D'Souza marvels how Irish Catholics, Jews, British Protestants, and people of so many other faiths live in competitive harmony uner the American system of government. He might well have included Scottish Presbyterians.

In the churches which existed at the time of the American Revolution, a representative system of government with a division of power was unique to Presbyterianism. Scottish Presbyterians were very influential before, during, and after the Revolution. James Witherspoon, a Presbyterian preacher from Glasgow, headed Princeton University, signed the Declaration of Independence, and played a major role in the war.

There were two important conventions in 1789: One produced the American Constitution; the other revised the Scottish Presbyterian Book of Order for the American Presbyterian Church. The two documents are very similar.

 
James R. Breckenridge 
Rockford, Illinois 

The three authors of "Back Toward Orthodoxy," as well as Frederick Turner (TRANSCRIPT) (April/May), assert there is a sweeping movement in America toward increased religious devotion and "orthodoxy."

California-based religion researcher George Barna has conducted several surveys in the wake of September 11 and concludes that, despite a perceived increase in church attendance, giving, prayer, and other expressions of religious devotion, nothing has actually changed since the attacks.