Chabad - Prof. David Berger's clarification of Village Voice article

Regarding a recent article about Chabad in the Village Voice there was a quote from Prof. Berger which seemed to indicate that he had greatly modified his critique of Chabad. The following is his response to my request for clarification of the Village Voice interview.
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Professor Berger wrote:

Dear Rabbi L. and Rabbi Eidensohn,

I have not chas ve-shalom reversed my position regarding Chabad.

You are welcome to post the following clarification:

The relevant section of the Village Voice article reads as follows:

“Though [Berger] staunchly opposes the movement, he says that there are strong theological underpinnings both to the messianism and even to the ‘seemingly crazy assertion’ that the rebbe really didn't die. ‘Judaism says that in every generation, there is a righteous person that connects the world to the divine energy,’ he explains. ‘If there is no leader, the world would actually cease to exist. So the fact that the rebbe has died and that the world continues to exist is a conundrum to them, and it leads them to believe that the rebbe must not have died. But even people who believe he did die find this to be a challenging question.’ They resolve it, he adds, by opining that we're living in strange times, or that the rebbe is still providing the divine connection from his grave.” Ad kan.

I posted the following comment on the paper’s website.

“I am quoted as saying the following: ‘Judaism says that in every generation, there is a righteous person that connects the world to the divine energy. If there is no leader, the world would actually cease to exist.’ I said this about Lubavitch hasidism, not about Judaism as a whole.” Ad kan.

Let me clarify the point and why I think it is important. The instinctive reaction that Lubavitch messianists (and kal va-chomer those who believe the Rebbe is alive) are meshugoyim is one of the reasons why people fail to deal with this clear and present danger to Judaism seriously. Some of the believers are no doubt crazy, but most—even of the latter variety--are not. For them, it is a given that the world can survive only through the mediation of a physical tzaddik, and since the birth of Chabad this tzaddik must be the Lubavitcher Rebbe of the generation. It is simply unthinkable that it could be anyone else. This is all standard Lubavitch theology.

Thus, it is the people who recognize that the Rebbe died who are forced to resort to what they admit are shinuyei dechikei to the point of saying that the world in our generation is sustained and governed from the Rebbe’s gravesite. To illustrate that people who deny sense perception as a result of faith can be entirely normal, I noted the masses of Catholics who believe that the real body of Jesus is present in a piece of bread.

Once we realize that this un-Jewish belief is deeply rooted in a theology that virtually all Lubavitch hasidim affirm—and once we realize that the belief in the Rebbe’s Messiahship and even divinity are also driven by deeply entrenched elements of Lubavitch theology as well as in statements of the Rebbe himself-- we will be less inclined to dismiss these beliefs as the transient products of the fevered imaginations of a handful of wild-eyed lunatics. At that point, maybe we will stop dismissing all this as an amusing curiosity and actually try to do something to prevent the believers from being recognized as Orthodox rabbis and religious functionaries, a recognition that betrays Judaism and desecrates the memory of kedoshim through the ages who died to preserve the theological boundaries between Judaism and Christianity.