Ann Coulter says Jews have to become Christians to get to heaven or something. All very Protestant sounding (“perfecting”, “perfection” something something — one of those Protestant words like “depravity” and “election” that I’m not clear on, I guess). I’m not Jewish either, so I don’t have a gut reaction.
This may not be official Catholic teaching, but I believe Jews get special salvation treatment and don’t have to convert. As well, the Church teaches that “those who, without knowing of the Church but acting under the inspiration of grace, seek God sincerely and strive to fulfill his will, are saved even if they have not been baptized”; that “baptism by desire”, although very rare, exists — basically there seems to be more wiggle room than we give God credit for…
So Coulter’s sin seems to be, in part, that she dared to express her religious convictions in an “insensitive”, ie public, manner, in front of a Jewish interviewer. Gee, I thought we conservatives were against p.c. euphemisms and hyper-sensitivity.
Expect to never hear the end of this.
I’m more fascinated by Michael Totten’s claim that he’s only met two people in the Middle East who were “ruder and more openly intolerant than Ann Coulter.” Makes me reluctantly doubt the veracity of his reporting from Iraq…
