Why is Reporting on Religion and Politics So Lousy?

The article correctly portrays a kind of cultlike aspect to Donald Trump's campaign, something that has been evident for some time. Fine. But it suggests that the kind of swooning, uncritical adoration that the Trump cult produces can best be understood as a religion. On behalf of believers everywhere, I wish to inform Mr. Bender and his editors at The Times that our faith is intellectually sophisticated and profound, that the Catholic intellectual tradition has always thrived on the interplay of faith and reason — often in ways that prove more enduring that any fideism or scientism — and that the Christian faith is no more (or less) capable of ignorance than the rest of the human race.