"The Church has Produced Tremendous Things ..."

The list of the Church's achievements is a formidable one, but close examination will, I fear, show that it is almost entirely inaccurate. (1) "The world's greatest art."

Well that may be a matter of taste, and Mr. Wadman claims to be among other things, an art critic. "Well, I don't know much about art, etc." But surely "the world's greatest" must include Durer, Rembrandt, Holbein—all very much sons of the great Renaissance materialism. And even where great artists were under the direct influence of the Church-Michelangelo, Leonardo. Botticelli-it was rather because it was the dominant ideology of the times.

(2) "... the World's Greatest Music" When the Church can claim Beethoven, I'll agree.

(3) "... the World's Most Searching Literature."

Well, Eccliastes and the Book of Job, not to mention the whole range of Greek drama and epic, were written long before the Church was thought of. As for the Renaissance masters of literature—Shakespeare. Marlowe. Cervantes. Rabelais, Spinoza. Bacon—the same goes for them as for their artist contemporaries. Even Milton was more of a rationalist than a Christian, and he certainly was anti-clerical. And were Tolstoy, Balzac, Goethe, Zola. Thomas Mann, scions of the Church? I think not.