One evening, as he and I hung out, the firefighter and I got to talking about politics, Atlas Shrugged, and religion. He was a George W. Bush supporter, attracted by the faith based initiatives, the tax cuts, and the "good versus evil" attitude toward vanquishing America's enemies. He feared government so big and unaccountable that it might capriciously lord power over the citizenry, so he identified with characters like Dagny Taggart, Francisco d'Anconia, and Hank Rearden. In his estimation, they were articulating why government had no right to trespass on individual liberty he regarded as God given, and doing their utmost to work hard, play fair, and oppose autocrats. He also identified with their realization that guilt can be wielded unfairly as a weapon.

"Do you think this book is compatible with Christianity?" he asked me, as if deeply conflicted by the question. He very much hoped so. Much of its plot coincided with his moral intuitions... the idea of objective right and wrong, the importance of doing what you regard to be right without compromise, even its mockery of original sin as a moral abomination. But its atheistic passages are explicit. Unnerved by cognitive dissonance, he explained that the Bible also struck him as profoundly true, and that his own life was testament to Christianity's transformative power. He felt particularly conflicted about Eddie Willers, a character whose moral goodness is beyond question, but who is abandoned by his friends because he lacks their intelligence and intellectual courage. "Why not treat him more like Jesus would have?" he said. "I don't see how that would harm the important parts of Ayn Rand's message." Mind you, he couldn't defend that position.

It's just what he felt to be true.

Like the firefighter, I find that some aspects of Atlas Shrugged resonate with my moral intuitions, even as other passages seem to me deeply wrongheaded. I am also a great fan of Jesus Christ. I don't know that he's the son of God, despite 14 years of Catholic education that presented his godly status as fact, but I know of no philosopher who better informs the way humans ought to live, and anyone who followed all his teachings would be praiseworthy in my book.

Accordingly, I find no contradiction in Atlas Shrugged and the Bible both sitting on my shelf. Though they contradict one another, I take neither as infallible and I've gleaned moral truth from both. I am sure that makes orthodox Christians and Objectivists alike very uncomfortable. But it also highlights something that those two groups have in common: a conviction that certain texts and belief systems must either be embraced wholeheartedly or rejected - that any position in between is heretical or incoherent.

The ad is effective insofar as some religious voters will find any praise of Rand to be problematic. She's made statements every bit as offensive to their ears as anything Jeremiah Wright said. Moreover, there are prominent conservatives who treat Ayn Rand too much like Gospel, and who embrace specific aspects of her philosophy that are deeply at odds with Christianity. Should those politicians lose the support of folks who demand different, that's perfectly fair.