First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life back issues from November 2000:
Correspondence.
Nov 01, 2000 ... The Pope in Israel It wasn't the fact that a pope visited Israel that made John Paul II's visit to Israel so awe-inspiring--but that this Pope visited (George Weigel, "Holy Land Pilgrimage: A Diary," June/ July). Every comment made by Pope John Paul II was followed by a ...
Goo-Goo Time.
Nov 01, 2000; ... We are in the heart of an election season, which means we are also deep in goo-goo time. Goo-goos are people who believe that political process determines political substance. (In the nineteenth century the original goo-goos--the term came from "good government"--persuaded ...
Shakespearean Variation 1.(Poem)
Nov 01, 2000; ... <Pre>From fairest creatures we desire increaseThat being fat they may before they dieHave such avoirdupois that at deceaseThey'll make a greater claim on memory--Dew-lapped, lids heavy, pouched eyes,Poly-chinned, their engine full of fuelAnd bellied to ...
For Useless Learning.(Brief Article)
Nov 01, 2000; ... In an essay written during World War II, C. S. Lewis raised the question of learning during wartime. What, he asked, is the use of pursuing arcane knowledge when the world is collapsing about us? Isn't this like fiddling while Rome burns? Since I teach at a Christian liberal arts college, ...
The Human Genome in Human Context.
Nov 01, 2000; ... On June 26, two teams of scientists announced jointly that they had virtually completed the task of mapping the human genome. The announcement was made at a White House ceremony featuring the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of England, and the heads of the two teams. The ...
Shakespearean Variation 9.(Poem)
Nov 01, 2000; ... <Pre>Is it for fear to wet a widow's eyeThat you cling tenaciously to life?Or is determination not to dieAimed at yourself instead of at your wife?Do you fear that, mourning, she would weepBecause your dying left her here behindWith only fading memories to ...
Populism and Parental Choice.
Nov 01, 2000; ... Civility is breaking out in a hotly contested sector of the culture war. For thirty years armies of authors have savaged one another over whether society should assure have-not families free access to all schools. The claims made for and against subsidized school choice have been ...
Shakespearean Variation 18.(Poem)
Nov 01, 2000; ... <Pre>Shall I compare thee to a summer's dayAs if indeed the time were temperate,Although the month's December and not May,And wishes could transport you to that date?Shall I invent a summer sun that shinesLess brightly since its very light is dimmedBy yours ...
Conservatives, Darwin & Design: An Exchange.
Nov 01, 2000; ... Larry Arnhart One sign of the intellectual confusion among conservatives these days is that they cannot decide what to think about Charles Darwin. Some conservatives (such as Charles Murray and James Q. Wilson) appeal to Darwinian biology as showing how moral order is rooted in ...
Shakespearean Variation 44.(Poem)
Nov 01, 2000; ... <Pre>If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,And Descartes with his methodic wayWere right, who flesh and blood had broughtTo mere res cogitans, I'd rather go than stay.For how could mind in space be made to stand,Or loving me get in warm touch with thee? ...
THE WARREN COURT AND AMERICAN POLITICS.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... THE WARREN COURT AND AMERICAN POLITICS. By Lucks A. POWE, JR. Harvard University Press. 566 pp. $35. In the Preface to his absorbing history of the Warren Court, Professor Lucas A. Powe, Jr. casually slips in what ought to be a startling confession. The confession begins ...
BRENNAN AND DEMOCRACY.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... BRENNAN AND DEMOCRACY. By FRANK I. MICHELMAN. Princeton University Press. 148 pp. $24.95. In the Preface to his absorbing history of the Warren Court, Professor Lucas A. Powe, Jr. casually slips in what ought to be a startling confession. The confession begins innocently enough ....
THE REHNQUIST COURT AND THE CONSTITUTION.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... THE REHNQUIST COURT AND THE CONSTITUTION. By TINSLEY E. YARBROUGH. Oxford University Press. 306 pp. $35. In the Preface to his absorbing history of the Warren Court, Professor Lucas A. Powe, Jr. casually slips in what ought to be a startling confession. The confession begins ...
Shakespearean Variation 65.(Poem)
Nov 01, 2000; ... <Pre>Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless seaAre metaphor enough to catch your power,No more would I to buzzing bee make pleaTo mimic an apt companion for the flower.Some things are best expressed straight out.To what could we compare our single days, ...
Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity.
Nov 01, 2000 ... Dabru Emet ("Speak the Truth ") is a statement by more than 170 Jewish scholars issued in September 2000. In recent years, there has been a dramatic and unprecedented shift in Jewish and Christian relations. Throughout the nearly two millennia of Jewish exile, Christians have ...
FROM DAWN TO DECADENCE: 500 YEARS OF WESTERN CULTURAL LIFE (1500 TO THE PRESENT).(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... FROM DAWN TO DECADENCE: 500 YEARS OF WESTERN CULTURAL LIFE (1500 TO THE PRESENT). By JACQUES BARZUN. HarperCollins. 877 pp. $36. FROM DAWN TO DECADENCE is one of those wonderful books that cannot be categorized. Some reviewers have compared it to The Education of Henry Adams, ...
PROTESTANTS AND PICTURES: RELIGION, VISUAL CULTURE, AND THE AGE OF AMERICAN MASS PRODUCTION.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... PROTESTANTS AND PICTURES: RELIGION, VISUAL CULTURE, AND THE AGE OF AMERICAN MASS PRODUCTION. By DAVID MORGAN. Oxford University Press. 417pp.$35. IN ACCORD WITH much of Scripture itself, the churches of the Reformation have emphasized the ear over the eye: files ex auditu. The ...
CASSIAN THE MONK.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... CASSIAN THE MONK. By COLUMBA STEWART. Oxford University Press. 286 pp. $60 cloth, $19.95 paper. THE GOAL OF LIFE for Christians is the kingdom of God, but early in the Church's history the men and women of the desert realized that the practice of the Christian life required more ...
JOHN CASSIAN: THE CONFERENCES.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... JOHN CASSIAN: THE CONFERENCES. Translated and Annotated by BONIFACE RAMSEY. Paulist Press. 886 pp. $39.95. THE GOAL OF LIFE for Christians is the kingdom of God, but early in the Church's history the men and women of the desert realized that the practice of the Christian life ...
THE SEXUAL CENTURY.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... THE SEXUAL CENTURY. By ETHEL SPECTOR PERSON. Yale University Press. 387 pp. $35. IN THE SEXUAL CENTURY, Ethel Spector Person, a New York psychoanalyst associated with Columbia University, presents a collection of her essays on sexual development and pathology written over the ...
THE FOURTH GREAT AWAKENING AND THE FUTURE OF EGALITARIANISM.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... THE FOURTH GREAT AWAKENING AND THE FUTURE OF EGALITARIANISM. By ROBERT WILLIAM FOGEL. University of Chicago Press. 383 pp. $25. THE FRAMEWORK FOR this book by economic historian Robert William Fogel, 1993 Nobel Prize-winner in economics, is borrowed, as the author fully ...
THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHRISTIAN BIOETHICS.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHRISTIAN BIOETHICS. By H. TRISTRAM ENGELHARDT, Jr. Swets & Zeitlinger. 397 pp. $39.95. IN 1986 H. Tristram Engelhardt published his widely read book, The Foundations of Bioethics. A second edition followed in 1996. Both editions carried the stamp of ...
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH: THE LEARNED MUSICIAN.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH: THE LEARNED MUSICIAN. By CHRISTOPH WOLFE. Norton. 599pp. $39.95. Great books do not require long reviews. If the book's so great, why waste time reading the review? That being so, this review of Christoph Wolff's new biography of Johann Sebastian Bach is ...
A HISTORY OF CELIBACY: FROM ATHENA TO ELIZABETH I, LEONARDO DA VINCI, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE GHANDI, AND CHER.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... A HISTORY OF CELIBACY FROM ATHENA TO ELIZABETH I, LEONARDO DA VINCI, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE GHANDI, AND CHER. By ELIZABETH ABBOTT. Scribner 493pp. $30. Most people today simply assume that the celebrated figures of our past had some illicit affair or perversity hiding in their ...
SEEING SALVATION: IMAGES OF CHRIST IN ART.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... SEEING SALVATION: IMAGES OF CHRIST IN ART. By NEIL MACGREGOR. Yale University Press. 238pp. $35. Images of Christ in iconography, sculpture, and painting from the early centuries--and one wishes one could say up to the present. There is, however, little here beyond the sixteenth ...
NOT ASHAMED: THE STORY OF JEWS FOR JESUS.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... NOT ASHAMED: THE STORY OF JEWS FOR JESUS. By RUTH A. TUCKER. Multnomah. 310 pp. $12.99 paper. Twenty-five years after Moishe Rosen launched Jews for Jesus, it continues to flourish as one of the most promising, provocative, offensive, outrageous (depending on whom you ask) ...
JUDGING JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... JUDGING JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES. BY SHAWN FRANCIS PETERS. University of Kansas Press. 342 pp. $34.95. A vivid telling of the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in the U.S., especially during World War II, and the religious freedom ...
THE ESSENTIAL CIVIL SOCIETY READER: THE CLASSIC ESSAYS.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... THE ESSENTIAL CIVIL SOCIETY READER: THE CLASSIC ESSAYS. Edited by DON E. EBERLY. Rowman & Littlefield. 414 pp. $22.95 paper. The book delivers on its title and will be warmly welcomed by those who want to get on top of the still-growing ...
FADED MOSAIC THE EMERGENCE OF POST-CULTURAL AMERICA.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... FADED MOSAIC THE EMERGENCE OF POST-CULTURAL AMERICA. By CHRISTOPHER CLAUSEN. Ivan R. Dee. 209 pp. $25. However many sides there are in the culture wars, they are all wrong. The sobering fact, says the author, is that culture--whether understood as a monoculture or as ...
GOD AND GLOBALIZATION: RELIGION AND THE POWERS OF THE COMMON LIFE.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... GOD AND GLOBALIZATION: RELIGION AND THE POWERS OF THE COMMON LIFE. Edited by MAX L. STACKHOUSE and PETER J. PARIS. Trinity. 304 pp. $40. Issuing from a conference at the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton, ...
THE AMERICAN PARADOX: SPIRITUAL HUNGER IN AN AGE OF PLENTY.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... THE AMERICAN PARADOX: SPIRITUAL HUNGER IN AN AGE OF PLENTY. By DAVID G. MYERS. Yale University Press. 412 pp. $29.95. A comprehensive survey of "communitarian" initiatives in thought and public polio. The author, ...
FLUDD.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... FLUDD. By HILARY MANTEL. Henry Holt. 181 pp. $13 paper. Ms. Mantel, an English writer with eight novels on her record, is too young to have known firsthand the bad old "pre-Vatican II Church," but she rummages with juvenile zest through the warehouse of tattered stereotypes to ...
TO KILL THE POPE: AN ECCLESIASTICAL THRILLER.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... TO KILL THE POPE: AN ECCLESIASTICAL. THRILLER. By TAD SZULC. Scribner. 312 pp. $25. Szulc, who wrote a biography of the Pope, writes in this novel's afterword that "the truth about the investigation and assassination attempt against John Paul II is disclosed here for the first ...
RELIGION AND THE NEW REPUBLIC.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... RELIGION AND THE NEW REPUBLIC. Edited by JAMES H. HUTSON. Rowman & Littlefield. 212 pp. $70 cloth, $24.95 paper. Papers by, inter alia, ...
WHAT'S LEFT? LIBERAL AMERICAN CATHOLICS.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... WHAT'S LEFT? LIBERAL AMERICAN CATHOLICS. Edited by MARY JO WEAVER. Indiana University Press. 304 pp. $39.95 paper. Conservatives are distressed by change, writes editor Weaver, while liberals "can accept a God and a world in process and in partnership .... [They] recognize that ...
CLARK H. PINNOCK: JOURNEY TOWARD RENEWAL.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... CLARK H. PINNOCK: JOURNEY TOWARD RENEWAL. BY BARRY L. CALLEN. Evangel. 298 pp. $18.95 paper. Pinnock is an evangelical Protestant theologian to whom the adjective "controversial" has been attached for almost thirty years. Callen sympathetically ...
PAUL: A NOVEL.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... PAUL: A NOVEL. BY WALTER WANGERIN. Zondervan. 510 pp. $44.99 cloth, $18.99 paper. A strange and rewarding book. The apostle Paul speaks only in the words of his New Testament letters, while all around him are the voices of ...
TRINITY, TIME, AND CHURCH: A RESPONSE TO THE THEOLOGY OF ROBERT W. JENSON.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... TRINITY, TIME, AND CHURCH: A RESPONSE TO THE THEOLOGY OF ROBERT W. JENSON. Edited by COLIN E. GUNTON. Eerdmans. 331 pp. $38. Robert Jenson is no stranger to the readers of this journal. Over almost forty years, this Lutheran deeply formed by Barthian, Catholic, and Orthodox ...
CHAMPION OF WOMEN AND THE UNBORN: HORATIO ROBINSON STORER, M.D.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... CHAMPION OF WOMEN AND THE UNBORN: HORATIO ROBINSON STORER, M.D. By FREDERICK N. DYER. Science History Publications. 614 pp. $39.95. Largely forgotten today is the fact that it was the medical profession that in the nineteenth century rallied public sentiment and led in ...
THE BEST CHRISTIAN WRITING 2000.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000 ... THE BEST CHRISTIAN WRITING 2000. Edited by JOHN WILSON. HarperSanFrancisco. 340 pp. $15 paper. There is an element of arbitrariness in selecting "the best" of anything, but this is a very credible collection of twenty-seven ...
Shakespearean Variation 87.(Poem)
Nov 01, 2000; ... <Pre>Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing.Shock shook me when I read the estimateOf payment for your ultimate releasingFrom the mechanics' clutches at a date determinate.You were a good old car. I'm grantingThat, of my loyalty more than deserving,...
TO SAY JESUS IS LORD.(Brief Article)
Nov 01, 2000; ... Yes, much of the misunderstanding was willful. But the fact is that the media coverage of the declaration Dominus Iesus (The Lord Jesus), issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in September, was almost uniformly negative, as was the reaction of the several ...
FROM THE NORTHERN FRONT.
Nov 01, 2000; ... Allumette Island, Quebec. August 2000--I admit it, I have cheated this year. The National Post made me do it. And, to a lesser extent, the Ottawa Citizen, where my friend Raymond de Souza, a seminarian at the North American College in Rome, is reporting on the magnificent World Youth Day ...
THE EXTREME OF EXCELLENCE.(Review)
Nov 01, 2000; ... Nobody wants to be called an extremist, but there is undeniably something extreme about human excellence. That is the argument of a bracing new book by R. R. Reno and Brian S. Hook, Heroism and the Christian Life: Reclaiming Excellence (Westminster/ John Knox, 249 pp., $23.95 paper). They ...
CONTRACT, COVENANT, AND THE BEGINNING OF "THE AMERICAN CENTURY".
Nov 01, 2000; ... It is a commonplace, but it is a commonplace because it has so often been found true, that we suffer both from thinking too much of ourselves and from thinking too little of ourselves. This is undoubtedly the case also in our thinking about the American experiment. James Madison observed ...
WHILE WE'RE AT IT.
Nov 01, 2000; ... * In this issue, we once again take on, as we have many times in recent years, the always changing debate over evolution as science, philosophy, and, if we are to believe some of its more ardent proponents, as quasi-religion. Readers tend to have strong opinions on this subject, and some ...