Kenan Malik, reviewing Sam Harris' latest book Letter to a Christian Nation in this piece in the Telegraph, argues that the problem with secularists who write about religion is that they are "interested solely in the question of the truth and falsity of a religion's creed, and tend to ignore the other dimensions of faith" (the words are his, but he attributes the sentiment to philosopher Julian Baggini).

He rather misses the point that Harris specifically aims his book at fundamentalist Christians rather than moderates. In the US, of course, this is a large slice of the population, and Harris is very worried about these people. When he talks about fundamentalism he means a dogmatic belief in an inerrant holy book, and this is the subject he addresses.

Malik appears to be a religious moderate, by which I mean someone who is more concerned with the experience than with the text. That's fine, if you've got nothing better to do, but it's not Harris' concern.

Lots of people have exciting hobbies. Some people like to race cars. Malik likes to imagine metaphysical dimensions. That's his business.

It's everyone else's business, though, when private pleasures intrude disastrously into the public domain. Malik races his car on his own track, and that's up to him. What bothers us is the people who race their cars on the public highway, whose top priority is their own divinely revealed Highway Code. We don't care how much fun they're having, how richly satisfying their experiences are, we're only concerned with the effects of their actions. Malik may not be hurting anyone himself, but by attacking people who are trying to safeguard the public highway, even when they make it perfectly clear they're not talking about him, he's making life easier for the joyriders.