Letters to the Magazine

Elk Grove, Calif.

The overriding reason that previous dollar coins didn't catch on is that people regarded them as novelties, not as "real" money. You never got them at the bank unless you asked for them, and then the tellers had to hunt for some. The Federal Reserve needs to require banks to take a significant percentage of their new $1 currency in coins, and ask them to give out coins first and use paper bills only if they're specifically requested. They need to run ads that show people using the coins as real money and that point out that a $1 coin is more convenient in a machine than four quarters. Since the demise of the penny seems inevitable, that will free up one slot in cash registers.

Shari Prange

Bonny Doon, Calif.

Politics of Faith, Continued

In his Nov. 27 letter, Prof. Randall Balmer attempts to perpetuate an inside-the-Beltway urban legend that the rise of the religious right was a reaction to IRS efforts to revoke Bob Jones University's tax-exempt status because of racist policies. I was a foot soldier on the ground in the mid-'70s, having been pro-life since my teens. I also rejected racism as a grievous sin and regarded the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as a personal hero. It wasn't Roe v. Wade, but the 1.5 million to 1.6 million abortions a year it quickly spawned, that drove previously uninvolved evangelicals and Roman Catholics by the millions into politics between 1976 and 1980 in support of strongly pro-life candidates like Ronald Reagan. Most of those people had never heard of the Bob Jones case, and if they had, most would have rejected the university's policies. Also, I worked for W. A. Criswell from 1975 to 1988, and he changed his mind in the mid-'70s--appalled by the millions of babies being killed--and became unequivocally pro-life, as indicated in the notes to his "Criswell Study Bible" (1979). Southern Baptists did pass a pro-choice resolution in 1971, but after a conservative rebellion against such liberal positions prevailed, the convention overwhelmingly passed strong pro-life resolutions in 1982 and 1984.