Left-Right Religion? - NYTimes.com Re "Religion Beyond the Right" (column, May 7): Thank you, Frank Bruni, for observing that Bible-believers have ethics to discuss beyond sexuality. How about getting beyond "left" and "right" religion altogether? Who mandated that our political and religious divisions should be captive to rhetoric derived from the French Revolution? Take the issue of justice to the poor: that theme pervades the Hebrew prophets and the Gospels, as many official Jewish, Catholic and Protestant teachings insist. In the Bible, economic justice is not "leftist" or "liberal." It's one of God's great commandments. Sometimes I think that we should divide Americans between those who know and take seriously the teachings of the whole Bible and those who just keep one on the shelf. The writer is president emeritus of Union Theological Seminary.