Speaking of environmentalism as a secular religion, check out the Wall Street Journal’s Letters section today, which piles up the replies to Bret Stephens’s “Global Warming as Mass Neurosis,” an article Planet Gore excerpted last week.

Here are the global warming movement’s cultic parallels, many of whose characteristics can be found in Walter Martin and Ravi Zacharias’s famous 2003 book, “The Kingdom of the Cults”: (1) Leadership by a New Age prophet — in this case, former Vice President Al Gore. (2) Assertion of an apocalyptic threat to all mankind. (3) An absolutist definition of both the threat and the proposed solution(s). (4) Promise of a salvation from this pending apocalypse. (5) Devotion to an inspired text which embodies all the answers — in this case Mr. Gore’s pseudo-scientific book “Earth in the Balance” and his new “An Inconvenient Truth” documentary. (6) A specific list of “truths” which must be embraced and proselytized by all cult members. (7) An absolute intolerance of any deviation from any of these truths by any cult member. (8) A strident intolerance of any outside criticism of the cult’s definition of the problem or of its proposed solutions. (9) A “heaven-on-earth” vision of the results of the mission’s success or a “hell-on-earth” result if the cultic mission should fail. (10) An inordinate fear (and an outright rejection of the possibility) of being proven wrong in either the apocalyptic vision or the proposed salvation. Finally, since this cultic juggernaut has persuaded (brainwashed?) a majority of Americans into at least a temporary mindset of support for its pseudo-religious scam, Mr. Stephens’s label of “mass neurosis” seems frighteningly accurate. Jim Guirard Alexandria, Va.

Amusing stuff. Still, I think I prefer Tom Nelson’s allegorical rundown that appeared back in April. Amusing word, that: allegorical — in this context.