Hope you are continuing to follow Tony Flood’s page-by-page refutation of Chris Ferrara’s The Church and the Libertarian. One is rarely treated to such an edifying roasting. It is a merely prosaic and ancillary pleasure to see those who endorsed this book, without knowing anything about the tradition of thought allegedly profiled in it, exposed as charlatans.

The author of the book, evidently white with rage that the Internet allows this kind of public dismantling of a shoddy, uncharitable, lawyer’s brief of a book, is reduced to claiming that I “enlisted” Tony to perform this task (as if I could ever have so good a friend that he would agree to such a thing!), that Tony is “ducking” points that his critique hasn’t in fact reached yet, or that I, having posted exactly three blog posts about all this, am obsessed with Ferrara and should move on to someone else. This latter complaint is a bit rich, coming from someone who wrote tens of thousands of words about me over the course of seven years, such that an entire book could be published out of it. Physician, heal thyself.

What I take that complaint to mean, though, is that Tony Flood’s learned reply is getting under the author’s skin and embarrassing him, so he hopes he can embarrass me into no longer highlighting Tony’s work to my audience. Not only will I not cease doing so, but to the contrary I intend to highlight particular posts every week from now until Tony’s work is complete.

For my own position on these issues, see my book The Church and the Market, along with the relevant pieces on my Articles page.