In response to A. Clifford Roy’s letter (Oct. 20) contrasting humanism and Christianity, I take strong exception to one charge fallaciously attributed to Christianity, namely, its putative belief or teaching that “human beings are inherently worthless.”

Such a charge is, I feel, a gross calumny to a great faith that has done much good in the world, and a charge I intend to refute.

In contradistinction to that charge, I feel that Judeo-Christianity places supreme worth on the value of each individual life as seen, for example, in the strong pro-life position of many Christians; even regarding it as sacred. Why else would Christians support and send doctors, teachers and others to minister to indigenous peoples and build hospitals, leprosariams, schools, etc., in the most disease-ridden and impoverished places in the world?

What are humanism’s comparable accomplishments?

Even the nation’s Declaration of Independence — a statement to which Deists (the religion of its author, Thomas Jefferson), as well as Christians, gave their assent — enshrines the sacredness and God-given rights of the individual in those immortal words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness.”

A declaration Christians then and today heartily endorse — one extolling the preeminent value and sacred worth of all humans.

Stanley J, Rice, Turner