Rod,
Good post; lousy interpretation of O’Connor. That’s an apocalyptic statement about judgment, not a statement about daily suffering and piety. That is, it is more at home with Mark’s Jesus than Luke’s.

Comparing Rand to Stalin? Is this a joke?
Rand worshiped what was possible to man if each individual is allowed to live up to their potential. Stalin, Hitler, Mao and the other statists of her time worshiped man’s sacrifice to the collective hated the individual and their bloody legacies speak for themself.
Mr. Dreher’s comments are a dishonest smear. Do not take my word for it or Mr. Dreher, read Ayn Rand for yourself. She writes to each individual mind anyway.

Just listen to Rand’s comments at West Point where she fully justified the extermination of the Native Americans because they hadn’t been using their property as well as the white settlers could have. Indistinguishable from Maoism at the height of the purges.

Most secular Christians put more faith in their government than their God. I doubt this is something that even needs to be proven. Look at the welfare state if you need proof. God obviously knows this tendency and showed His concern in His reluctance to appoint a King for Israel. Still, God knew that our sinful nature was so strong that the people would appoint a King without His input if He did not select somebody, so He selected Saul. He later agreed that we must render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but that was just because He desires the hearts of His people more than their money or their rebellion against their government. Jesus did not come to insight a rebellion against Rome, but to die for our sins.
The period of the Judges and the Saul incident show that King’s and government are actually harmful to a people trying to follow God. Follow the Kings of Israel and you will see how they led the people to sin. The same happens today. Government’s only purpose is to enable the few to forcibly rule over the many, deciding for people what is good. That is slavery. Yes, taking personal property from people against their will is slavery and that is what taxes are. Rand was anti-government and pro-individual. Regardless of what else she believed, that part of her persona agrees with God 100% and resonates clearly with me.

The Rand / Stalin comparison is really absurd. Rand writes extensively about how “heroic” men do not lie or engage in dishonest, devious behavior. Being dishonest makes you subservient to other people’s delusions & ignorance. If anything, truthfulness and transparency are some of the highest moral values she espouses. Stalin, on the other hand, killed millions of people. His entire regime engaged in some of the most blatantly dishonest, monstrous propaganda in history.
Ayn Rand is constantly being distored by people who have never read her books.

Rand’s philosophy of the pursuit of the extreme ego is a little over the top…to the say the least. I agree with Rob in that Objectivism is at extreme odds with Christianity. Rand’s ideas on self-reliance and individuality were admirable in some ways (independence and personal responsibility), but the delivery and application of these principals was too rigid and lacked compassion. If you were broken down on the side of the road, would you want Dagny Taggart or Jesus to pass you by?
However, I think it is wise to separate the author from the philosopher in critiquing Rand.
For instance, in Atlas Shrugged, while dreadfully long winded and overdone at times, Rand’s weaving of a philosophy (whether you agree with it or not) into a fascinatingly fictional story was incredible.
I’m a Christian and I enjoyed Rand’s writing…for what it was, fiction.

Stalin, on the other hand, killed millions of people
I’m sure nobody would have died the day after “Atlas Shrugged,” when the heroes deliberately cause the total collapse of global civilization. Nobody in the rest of the world needed a surgeon or an electrician or a water safety engineer the next day, nope.

Oh, Rod, you’ll get a bunch of comments from Rand acolytes who cruise the internet look for an opportunity to defend her against the many people who “misunderstand” her philosophy.

Read a couple of Rand books back in college because some people I knew had discovered her and were raving about her. They were some of the worst books I’ve ever read. And while I agree with personal responsibility, the complete lack of empathy or anything resembling actual human goodness present in her characters and philosophy was appalling to me. It’s been a while since I’ve read her stuff (unfortunately not long enough to have wiped the crap completely from my poor brain), but I think that the comparison between Rand and Stalin is obviously incomplete. But their hatred of the natural world and certainty that they could come up with shudderingly abhorent visions of what an “ideal” man would/should be certainly does seem to be a shared fault of both. At the very least, I am very glad that Rand never had any actual power beyond her scribbling. While the details would have differed, she too would have been a totalitarian monster had she been in a position to do so. She just would have used different levers in service to her terrible vision than Stalin.

There is no question that Rand’s philosophy has holes you can drive a truck through, almost as many as Christianity does. But the notion that somehow suffering would make her compassionate in her writing is about as absurd as the latest blather from Wade Davis. Given her basic character, it would only have made her angry and bitter.

Rand’s philosophy, like Communism, would work if people behaved as she thought. They don’t. I have yet to meet a Great Man. I know lots of women who think they exist for purpose other than servicing their men. Yes, I read her books. Appealing when you are young. They have an element of truth. It is hard to write that much and not be right about something. Most of us grow up and move on.
Steve

I heard Rand speak once or twice, to small audiences, back in the day. She struck me then as stylistically very similar to my image of a Soviet apparatchik. An interesting character, to be sure, but a cocksure ideologue natheless.
Just as the Orthodox argue that Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are the squabbling children of the same Western legalism and rationalism, one can argue that extreme communism and extreme capitalism are children of the same kind of abstract, materialist, utopian mindset–we can reason our way to a perfect social arrangement, and if reality interferes, so much the worse for reality.
First comes repentance. Then pick up a hammer and some nails.

That’s it grumpy. Rand and Stalin look like opposites, but they’re only the opposite sides of the same coin. Collectivism vs. hyper-individualism are the false choice forced by Materialist ideology but they share the same basic features and assumptions.

Monstrous, sure – Stalinist, not so much…

Obviously no intellectual Atlas’s at this site. I’m disappointed that it is attached to Fox’s website. For anyone else who finds their way here–read Ayn’s work for yourself and think for yourself. If you have a positive life-affirming sense of life, you will enjoy her work tremendously.

We as Christians should not be afraid of idealogues, or feel the need to disparage others who hold firmly to a set of ideals. We need simply examine the moral argument and measure it with the yardstick of the truths we know and affirm. I find most of Ayn Rand’s work overwritten, repetitive, and laborious, but her insistence that the individual is of great worth rings true, especially if you remember the parable of the lost sheep.

Rand’s philosophy, like Communism, would work if people behaved as she thought.
EXACTLY RIGHT!
All these movements evidence a fundamental misunderstanding of the human condition. Throughout history we see movements like this proclaiming bold New Ages of humanity, the creation of a New Man, only to be dashed against the rocky shores of thousands of years of human reality.
Unfortunately they all leave massive amounts of wreckage in their wakes…
Rand and Stalin look like opposites, but they’re only the opposite sides of the same coin.
Yup.
If you have a positive life-affirming sense of life, you will enjoy her work tremendously.
Nope.

“Just as the Orthodox argue that Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are the squabbling children of the same Western legalism and rationalism, one can argue that extreme communism and extreme capitalism are children of the same kind of abstract, materialist, utopian mindset–we can reason our way to a perfect social arrangement, and if reality interferes, so much the worse for reality.
First comes repentance. Then pick up a hammer and some nails.”
Well said, sir!

Rand’s writing is more catechism than argument, and bores into you in the manner of a drill.
Well, that was certainly my experience when I read Atlas Shrugged years ago. Or began reading it, I should say. I understood her point after the first 100 pages, but figured with 900 pages to go, surely she had more to say. By page 500, I realized she didn’t and so stopped reading.
Thanks to several of you for the insightful posts. Soviet Communism and extreme laissez faire (sp?) capitalism as two sides of the same materialist coin is something I can hang with. It’s consistent with my new favorite (non-canonized) religious author, Philip Sherrard’s, thought, as well.

Kudos on the Sherrard reference! The Rape of Man and Nature is fundamental for me and informs my rejection of Rand.

“For instance, in Atlas Shrugged, while dreadfully long winded and overdone at times…”
Yeah, like the parts between page 1 and page 1368.
“…Rand’s weaving of a philosophy (whether you agree with it or not) into a fascinatingly fictional story was incredible.
I’m a Christian and I enjoyed Rand’s writing…for what it was, fiction.”
Rand is to fiction what a claw hammer is to brain surgery.
Besides the obvious turgid didactic prose, there are the horrendous “love” scenes. Apparently, Dagny Taggart really likes it rough to the point of rape.
I’ve read quite a lot of Rand’s writing. Every word I’ve read was a word too much. I’ll never get that time back.

Christian Randians? That sounds like as small a category as “Unblack Metal”. I’m trying to imagine a Jesus Galt making his Sermon On The Mount (simulcasted on the radio worldwide, a la “Atlas Shrugged”), and it ends up like this from Monty Python’s “The Life Of Brain”…
Brian: Look, you’ve got it all wrong! You don’t NEED to follow ME, You don’t NEED to follow ANYBODY! You’ve got to think for your selves! You’re ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We’re all individuals!
Brian: You’re all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!
Yes, Rand has an undenaible appeal to…
*Young adults with no children to care for: so no temptations of altruism to impose on their self-absorbed lives.
*Engineering types, particularly in the computer realm: utterly non-ambiguous binary logic makes intuitive sense. All problems are ultimately solve-able if you review the numbers/source code/philosphical premises/etc. deep enough.
I’ve been there, done that, and moved on, thank Galt and praise the Roark!

How is it a contradiction to be a Christian and follow Rand? There are six basic tenets of Rand’s Objectivism, and only one of them affects religion. The other five don’t in any way, and they by-and-large reflect the basic American ideal of hard work, rugged individualism and self-reliance. There’s nothing in any of that which is incompatible with an Objectivist mindset.
And as to the one tenet that does contradict Christianity, and religion as a whole? Well, who says a person has to agree with EVERYTHING Rand wrote? One of ideals is to be a free thinker, loose from the lemming effect of what we today call “political correctness” that lead to a hellish socialist existence where quality and excellence are hated. Given that, it’s easy to see a Christian who ignores that tenet of Objectivism and agrees with the rest.
It’s called nuance.

It is difficult to take seriously a guy who has on his ‘blogs worth reading’ list – Andrew Sullivan. You pretty much lost credibility after that. To this reader, it makes your conclusions suspect at best.

This reminds me of the time Rod blogged something derogatory about what’s-her-name, some teen pop star, and all her fan boys and girls jumped in talking about how wrong Rod was and he just didn’t Get It.
At least the Randians show better spelling and grammar skills.

I read the whole enchilada (1368 pages) and yes it was long winded and did seem to get unrealistic toward the end but my take was entirely different than some of you. I interpreted her whole point being that of the individualist as the real savior of mankind both politically and materialistically and certainly did not in any shape or manner espouse communism/socialism but rather pointed out, I thought quite well that these were the ideologies that doom mankind to mediocrity. In all due respect folks I must state that I wonder if we read the same book? I thought indeed the story was most definitely drawn out but certainly she most emphatically made her point……..
right or wrong.

Two key concepts in objectivism are the free will of the individual and the pleasure they receive from their choices. If a person freely chooses to engage in a behavior that is viewed as “sacrificial”, I’m not sure that makes them an automatic pariah to objectivists. It depends on the context of the choice.
It’s been a long time since I read Atlas Shrugged – but there is a point where Hank Reardon is happy for Dagney when he realizes she actually loves Jon Galt. He doesn’t try to guilt her into staying with him – Reardon only wants her love if that choice gives her pleasure. You could view his decision to “wish her well” as sacrificial – but in the Randian world view, he is “choosing pleasure” and is being consistent with objectivist morality.
Ayn Rand is not amoral – and she spells our why choices that intentionally harm others are immoral.
I found the comments from Grumpy Old Man really interesting and am curious to hear more Christian assessments of Ayn Rand as well as general “collectivist” verus “individualist” debates. I am not necessarily an objectivist (I agree with Steve that it is less appealing as you get older – especially when you have kids) but I still get annoyed when her ideas are just blithely dismissed.
But you CANNOT equivocate Stalinism with Objectivism. Stalinism – plain and simple – was about mass murder.

Mojo Wilkins
February 3, 2010 2:02 PM
How is it a contradiction to be a Christian and follow Rand? There are six basic tenets of Rand’s Objectivism, and only one of them affects religion. The other five don’t in any way, and they by-and-large reflect the basic American ideal of hard work, rugged individualism and self-reliance. There’s nothing in any of that which is incompatible with an Objectivist mindset.
And as to the one tenet that does contradict Christianity, and religion as a whole? Well, who says a person has to agree with EVERYTHING Rand wrote? One of ideals is to be a free thinker, loose from the lemming effect of what we today call “political correctness” that lead to a hellish socialist existence where quality and excellence are hated. Given that, it’s easy to see a Christian who ignores that tenet of Objectivism and agrees with the rest.
It’s called nuance.
******
Six? I thought there were four.
In any event, the one that really is problematic is “Man is an end in himself.”
That is decidedly in contradiction with the Gospel. Additionally, it’s a foundational tenant of Objectivism. It can no more be nuanced away any more than a teaspoon of arsenic can be nuanced out of the bowl of Post Toasties you’re about to eat.
Objectivism, and Rand herself in almost all she wrote, holds no room for charity.
“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”
Randiansim stands in stark and explicit opposition of the “greatest of these of these…charity.”
In fact, the greatest to be embraced by Christianity, charity (just another word for love) is the greatest to be shunned by Randianism.
This fact is no small problem for Christians wishing to embrace Randiansim, or Objectivism, or whatever label one wishes to use.
The Christian faith is one of the communion of its memebers bound by Chrsit in love; Objectivism creed is one of absolute individualism.

TWylite: Funny, I was thinking of that exact same scene from Life of Brian. Michael Palin’s two-word rejoinder to the crowd (which I won’t spoil for anyone who hasn’t seen it) is possibly the funniest line in the entire movie.

Nick the Greek: “Funny, I was thinking of that exact same scene from Life of Brian. Michael Palin’s two-word rejoinder to the crowd (which I won’t spoil for anyone who hasn’t seen it) is possibly the funniest line in the entire movie.”
Would you have a YouTube link? I haven’t seen the life of Brian and am dying to know what the joke is.
Ayn Rand naturally inspires Pythonesque responses such as, “I fart in your general direction!”

Graham Chapman played Brian, so I think it was he who gave the two word rejoiner in question.

Didn’t read the posts, trying to beat the CAPTCHA. You have to remember, she was a child of the 30s when architectural grandeur was the space race of the day. There was a certain view that the depression was proof that democracy was a failed system, as many believe now that our current recession is proof of capitalism’s failure. If you’re into Rand, try also to read Uptun Sinclair’s book “It can’t happen here”. The new ideological dictarors of the day were seen as doing the job the old political systems could not do- Stalin and Ataturk were industrializing their backward, agrarian nations, Hitler driving out the moneychangers and uniting the German people, and Mussolini making Italy, uh, less Italian. Ms Rand was not mainstream, she was cutting edge.
A Randian- James, that is

It is difficult to take seriously a guy who has on his ‘blogs worth reading’ list – Andrew Sullivan.
And there you go. We reached this level of captcha rather quickly. Are they coming over from Red State yet? Soon, soon.
I never saw the appeal in Rand’s work as lit-too-a-ture – not my cup of tea outside any ideology issues.

As I see it, a Randian Christian could be perfectly at home as Robinson Crusoe . . . at least until Friday appeared upon the scene.
I can’t feature a Randian in a position where he must constantly think of sacrificing himself for his neighbor, believe Jesus that the last should be first and the first should be last, and give all he has to the poor to follow Him.

The best review of the absurdity of all things Randian is the following oldie-but-goodie by Murray Rothard (from a libertarian perspective of course):
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html

Actually, Sinclair Lewis wrote “It Can’t Happen here”

“Actually, Sinclair Lewis wrote “It Can’t Happen here”"
Is that the prequel to “I Hate When That Happens”?

Grumpy Old Man, excellent post!
Debz Comment: If you have a positive life-affirming sense of life, you will enjoy her work tremendously.
Typical statement of someone who’s drunk the Kool-Aid. In effect, “This is great, and if you don’t think so it shows something’s wrong with you.” Which actually is kind of Stalinist.
And no, I’ve not read Rand (just riffling through her books on the stand gave me no desire whatsoever to try to read them), although there are several posts here by those who have and were underwhelmed. I have read about her thought, some portions of her shorter philosophical works, and a lot of biographical essays about her, and I find her thought and personal conduct abominable. You don’t need to drink the whole cup of sludge to know it’s sludge.

“Graham Chapman played Brian, so I think it was he who gave the two word rejoiner in question.”
If I understand the commenter, he’s referring to a line from an “extra” in the crowd (but actually Palin), not from Brian.
And yes, it’s very funny.

So this Daniels guy is pretty threatened by common sense, is he? Obviously.
Sure Rand was entirely wrong (imo, of course) about her atheism. But she’s free to believe that. It just isn’t serving her well now, unfortunately. (now that she’s no longer living, that is)
I’ve read 3 of her books. Put aside her atheism, and some of her other ideas are quite filled with common sense. She makes all kinds of good points in her novels. She wrote about people who were do-ers, not sit-around-and-complain-ers. And shed light on the ‘looters’ for what they are.
Many of her ideas had merit and were not the least bit threatening to many of us.

Re: She wrote about people who were do-ers
What matters is not that one is a “doer” but what one is doing. Who would you consider a better guide to moral living: Mother Teresa or the CEO of Goldman Sachs?
Ms Rand was in love with (if not in lust with) wealth. She was a worshipper of Mammon. That is a mistake no Christian can excuse.

Crustacean, if you are interested in unfettered blogging and commenting, you are welcome to join us at http://aleksandreia.wordpress.com/

I tried to think Rand was cool for about 10 minutes when I was 17 and read “The Fountainhead” to try and get a scholarship from her foundation. I didn’t get it. I also realized that Rand was morally bankrupt and that a society founded on her principles would be a terrible place to live and work, with no compassion for the weak or those in need or acknowledgement of duty to family and friends and the drudgery of work that needs to be done even when we don’t feel like doing it. I rather wonder at adult men and women who really believe what Rand was pushing.

Tony D: You are correct, sir. It was Palin, playing one of his trademark dullards (a sort of 1st century Arthur Putey).

” My sense is that if one claims to be both a Christian and a Randian, one either does not understand Jesus Christ, or does not understand Ayn Rand.”
If one claims to be both Objectivist and religious, one understands neither.

“Rand’s philosophy, like Communism, would work if people behaved as she thought.”
Can’t agree with this enough.

Ayn Rand’s fiction is about man as he “could be and ought to be”. That means life as a rational being in a universe governed by the law of causality. A rational being understands what Francis Bacon proclaimed when he said “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.” See “Atlas Shrugged” for more details.

“You’re all individuals”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQqq3e03EBQ

Ayn Rand is a controversial figure in libertarian circles. She was clearly a genius, but a rather flawed one. She was classic, text-book example of a fanatic. The fact that her novels have no humor in them is illustrative of this fact. Barbara Brandon wrote a biography of Ayn Rand in 1986 called “The Passion of Ayn Rand”, which I considered to be well-balanced, fair treatment of her subject, especially considering the fact that Rand carried on an affair with Barbara’s husband, Brandon, for many years. Ayn Rand was certainly unpleasant to be around in person. It is also true that her ideas are built upon the shoulders of many German and Russian anarchist philosophers (whom she does not credit at all).
However, despite these many flaws, she did put it all together and got one thing right that no one else ever did. She is the only person that I know of to come and say straight out that the individual is the owner of his or her own life and that the fundamental question of morality is whether the individual is free to live to pursue their own goals in life or must the person be required to live by the dictates of an external moral agency. This is the one point that I credit Ayn Rand with and the point that I am in 100% agreement with.
I went though my “Randroid” phase while in college (most libertarians do, you know), then moved on. I read “Atlas Shrugged” once and have never been able to bring myself to read it again. Many libertarians have a saying, that it usually begins with Ayn Rand. You read her, you get into her, then you move on.
It is true than Ayn Rand despised religion. I don’t particularly care for religion myself. The difference is that Ayn Rand wanted to convert everyone to atheism and objectivism. I’m content to let everyone else be whatever they want to be (as long as I’m allowed to be what I want to be).
Live and let live.
BTW, I see nothing wrong with what you are calling moral therapeutic deism. If this is the current religion in the U.S., all I can say is that there are worse forms of religion than this (like ones that actually try to mess with those of us who don’t want any).
There are two kind of libertarians in this world. There are the Libertarians that want to convert the world to Libertarianism. Then there are the libertarians who are content to live their own lives and mind their own business, but accept the rest of the world for what it is. I am the second of libertarian.

Given Ms. Rand’s expressed hatred for religion, given the way she inverted Christian morality, once speaking of the “virtue” of pride, and given the way she promoted the worship of two deities we can rigorously debunk, namely reason and the self, do you consider Rand’s work spiritually dangerous? If not, why not?

While Ayn Rand may have “hated religion”, she did have a certain degree of respect for theology. She did say that religion had a degree of dignity to it in that it attempted to offer man a comprehensive view of existence (necessary to Man due to his nature as a conceptual being.)
She had no interest in “converting” anyone. She was interested in those open to rational persuasion, those who volitionally identified her philosophical principles and values as identical to their own. Unlike religion, she never thought in terms of converting anyone.
She viewed a code of sacrifice as harmful to man. She was not an egotist, but a rational egoist: it is good, a virtue, to have a reasonably healthy interest in oneself. This should be done, and not at another’s expense.
She lived by the Trader Principle in all things material and spiritual, exchanging values with others, not sacrifices.
She made it expressly clear that she was not libertarian, although libertarians love to free ride on her bandwagon.
None of her ideas were built on post-modern German and Russian nihilist philosophers. As a philosopher, she held her highest contempt for their anti-man views and theories. She published writings exposing them.
As a philosopher, she will be remembered for the three axiomatic concepts of her philosophy, and for having solved the age-old problem of universals. See her writing: *Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology*.
BTW, “Reason” and “Self” are not deities. There are those that mistakenly them that way, but Ayn Rand wasn’t one of them.

She is the only person that I know of to come and say straight out that the individual is the owner of his or her own life and that the fundamental question of morality is whether the individual is free to live to pursue their own goals in life or must the person be required to live by the dictates of an external moral agency.
Um, at the risk of sounding flippant (and I really don’t mean it that way at all), doesn’t pretty much every teenager “understand” this “truth” at some point?

This new biography of Ayn Rand, used (among other things) Communist-era “historical” documents as a source. Well, I’m sure that the USSR is a great source of information seeing that the Soviets, like Wikipedians, could write, and re-write their own history on a whim.
The author of said biography is not a “fan” of Ayn Rand, Objectivism or those that admire her work. We have heard this song before. Ayn Rand stood for individualism, reason and capitalism. Stalin stood for quite the opposite. This sort of slander piece on her (above and the bio) are unfortunate, and point to a sad case of moral impotence on behalf of the respective authors.
If you take the time to read her works or at least quote from them, you might challenge her views in a dignified and thoughtful manner instead of these ridiculous ad hominem, slander pieces which do no one much good, least of those who dislike what Rand stood for.

I am amused by the folks who state that Rand’s philosophy of objectivism is at odds with Christianity. Objectivism is not a religion. It is a point of view. How many Christians in this country are capitalists? A majority. How congruent with Christianity is capitalism? Not very. Now consider this.. how congruent with Christianity is socialism? More so. But how many Christians are socialists? Few. How many socialists are Christians. Not very many. Should we abandon capitalism in this country because socialism is more in line with the teachings of Christ?
There is faith and there are economic systems that bring wealth and prosperity for a nation of 300 million people. Who’s philosophy do you think is better for this nation – Ayn Rand or Barrack Obama?
And Ayn Rand was not a God hater. She was a church hater. There are plenty of folks who love God and accept Christ’s gift of salvation while rejecting the concept of church.