First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life back issues from February 2008:
Angles on Anglicanism.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
Feb 01, 2008; ... What Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi describes in his essay "What Is Anglicanism?" (August/September 2007) may be true of the Anglican Province Church of Uganda, but it is not true of all the Anglican Communion. Miranda Hassett in her new book, Anglican Communion in Crisis: How Episcopal ...
DiIulio's next president.(Correspondence)(John Dilulio)(Letter to the editor)
Feb 01, 2008; ... Americans are already complaining that there's too much coverage of the 2008 political contest and that the election process has started too early, but political junkies like me can't get enough. So, when November's FIRST THINGS arrived, it was only natural that I turned immediately to ...
God's legitimate authority.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
Feb 01, 2008; ... Fr. Neuhaus opines that it is right and necessary that the question of whose right to life must be protected should be decided politically. This is allegedly so "because our constitutional order vests political sovereignty in the people." The American constitutional order leaves much to be ...
Butter, no guns.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
Feb 01, 2008; ... In the October, November, and December issues of FIRST THUGS, Fr. Neuhaus discusses Paul Collier's book The Bottom Billion, along with several other books about the plight of the world's poorest people. Neuhaus seems to be at least half convinced by Collier's thesis that we should include ...
Losing his religion.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
Feb 01, 2008; ... I want to make three points about Belief: A Memoir. First, N. John Hall was my classmate in the diocesan seminary and is still a close friend, and I know that he entered the seminary, was ordained, and served as a priest in good faith. His ministry was praised by bishops and the laity ....
Faithful living.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
Feb 01, 2008; ... I write to clarify statements that were made in the November issue's Public Square under the headline "Homosexuality and Love's Duty," in which quotes from a column I wrote for our diocesan newspaper were prominently featured. I reported in that column the remarks I had heard from persons ...
Therapy, then fidelity.(Correspondence)(Letter to the editor)
Feb 01, 2008; ... As coauthor of Broken Trust, I would like to respond to Richard John Neuhaus' rather dismissive comments about the book in the November issue's Public Square. Who can argue with Fr. Neuhaus' explanation and rallying cry in regard to the priest sexual-abuse scandal--"fidelity, fidelity, ...
Getting stem cells right.(Opinion)
Feb 01, 2008; ... A true, no-cost resolution of a conflict, where the interests of all parties are served without compromise, is an exceedingly rare thing. Yet just such an unlikely resolution may be in hand for one of the most acrimonious conflicts of recent times: the debate over human embryonic stem ...
Henry Hyde (1924-2007).(Opinion)(Obituary)
Feb 01, 2008; ... In September 1984, I had a sabbatical year at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. One day--while I was having lunch with a Seattle congressman, Joel Pritchard, then in the midst of a bout of chemotherapy--a portly gentleman came up to our table to ask Joel how he was ...
Immigration and the bishops.(Opinion)
Feb 01, 2008; ... Frustrated by the national government's failed efforts to reform our immigration laws, many states and municipalities have begun taking matters into their own hands. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, more than 240 immigration-related bills became law in forty-six ...
The Legend of Saint Piran.(Poem)
Feb 01, 2008; ... <Pre> The Legend of Saint Piran They tied Saint Piran to a great millstoneAnd flung that good man in the Irish Sea.But the stone floated, and he stood aloneUpon the Cornwall shore in victory. The church he built was buried in the sand.Twelve hundred years ...
Mirror Verse.(Poem)
Feb 01, 2008; ... Brightly it gapes at the room. Nothing can argue the glass out of its passive (but wait: impassive, call it) alert, ready and able to mate doubles in pitiless pairs, mimicking background as well, fixed in its quicksilver depth. Threatened by such unappeased ardor to match what appears with ...
Secularization falsified.
Feb 01, 2008; ... It has been more than a century since Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God. The prophecy was widely accepted as referring to an alleged fact about increasing disbelief in religion, both by those who rejoiced in it and those who deplored it. As the twentieth century proceeded, however, the ...
Theology, politics, and Abraham Joshua Heschel.(Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972 by Edward K. Kaplan Yale University Press, 544 pages, $40 Abraham Joshua Heschel is probably best remembered today for his political activism during the 1960s and early 1970s. Whenever newsreels taken during that ...
Neither hot nor cold.( Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future (Wildavsky Forum) Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... GODLY REPUBLIC: A CENTRIST BLUEPRINT FOR AMERICA'S FAITH-BASED FUTURE by JOHN J. DIIULIO JR. University of California Press, 329 pages, $24.95 IT IS, AS A GENERAL RULE, wise to be skeptical of those who describe themselves as political centrists. People who claim to be ...
The wages of advocacy.(Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE: IN DEFENSE OF AMERICA'S TRADITION OF RELIGIOUS EQUALITY by MARTHA NUSSBAUM Basic Books, 320 pages, $27.50 MARTHA NUSSBAUM'S Liberty of Conscience is a blend mixed from approximately equal portions of John Rawls, Sandra Day O'Connor, and the pack of recent ...
Till we have built Jerusalem.( The Architecture of Ralph Adams Cram and His Office The Architecture of Ralph Adams Cram and His Office)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... THE ARCHITECTURE OF RALPH ADAMS CRAM AND HIS OFFICE by ETHAN ANTHONY W. W. Norton, 176 pages, $60 RALPH ADAMS CRAM--the twentieth-century church builder, neomedieval social critic, spinner of ghost stories, and modern knight-errant--is ready to take on a whole new century. ...
Roaming Baptists.(Towards Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... TOWARDS BAPTIST CATHOLICITY by STEVEN R. HARMON Wipf & Stock, 275 pages, $30 GIVEN THE BITTERNESS of the Baptist Battles of the past decades, it is amazing that liberals and conservatives still agree about much of anything. But through it all they have managed to retain their ...
Rethinking the past.(Ancient Philosophy: A New History of Western Philosophy)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... A NEW HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY by ANTHONY KENNY Oxford University Press, 4 volumes in one, 1,456 pages, $120 IF THOSE IGNORANT OF history are doomed to repeat it, those ignorant of the history of philosophy are even less fortunate: They're likely to do no more than struggle ...
The Last Freedom: Religion from the Public School to the Public Square.(Briefly Noted)(Brief article)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... THE LAST FREEDOM: RELIGION FROM THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TO THE PUBLIC SQUARE by Joseph Viteritti Princeton University Press, 294 pages, $27.95 In his 1999 book, Choosing Equality, Joseph Viteritti presented a compelling and eloquent case, grounded in equality and religious liberty, ...
The Teachings of Modern Roman Catholicism on Law, Politics, and Human Nature.(Briefly Noted)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... THE TEACHINGS OF MODERN ROMAN CATHOLICISM ON LAW, POLITICS, AND HUMAN NATURE edited by John Witte Jr. and Frank S. Alexander Columbia University Press, 536 pages, $79.50 Adorned with an "Introduction to Modern Catholicism" by Russell Hittinger, this collection will prove an ...
Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery.(Briefly Noted)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... AMAZING GRACE: WILLIAM WILBERFORCE AND THE HEROIC CAMPAIGN TO END SLAVERY by Eric Metaxas HarperOne, 320 pages, $13 (paper) In a book that modestly maintains that its purpose is not "to break new ground," the author makes the somewhat immodest claim that Wilberforce produced ...
Cry Havoc!: The Great American Bring-down and How It Happened.(Briefly Noted)(Brief article)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... CRY HAVOC!: THE GREAT AMERICAN BRING-DOWN AND How IT HAPPENED by Ralph de Toledano Anthem, 254 pages, $18 G.K. Chesterton's fantastic tale The Man Who Was Thursday warns of "a purely intellectual conspiracy" that would "threaten the very existence of civilization ... [T]he ...
Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief.(Briefly Noted)(Brief article)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... TOKENS OF TRUST: AN INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIAN BELIEF by Rowan Williams Westminster John Knox, 159 pages, $16.95 How does one introduce the intelligent skeptic to Christian belief? The archbishop of Canterbury aims to do so with a book bridging the interests of a thinking ...
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.(Briefly Noted)(Brief article)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... THE LUCIFER EFFECT: UNDERSTANDING HOW GOOD PEOPLE TURN EVIL by Philip Zimbardo Random House, 576 pages, $27.95 In The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, Philip Zimbardo theorizes that people discount situational influences when judging the actions of ...
Playing With God: Religion and Modern Sport.(Briefly Noted)(Brief article)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... PLAYING WITH GOD: RELIGION AND MODERN SPORT by William J. Baker Harvard University Press, 336 pages, $29.95 William Baker tells the history of sport's change from sinful to sanctifying. The Puritans generally saw sport as a distraction from godly things, but immigration and ...
Shattered Tablets: Why We Ignore the Ten Commandments at Our Peril.(Briefly Noted)(Brief article)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... SHATTERED TABLETS: WHY WE IGNORE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AT OUR PERIL by David Klinghoffer Doubleday, 256 pages, $24.95 If you think America is making even the slightest spiritual strides, David Klinghoffer will quickly dispel your optimism. Using Seattle as a case ...
Renewing Minds: Serving Church and Society through Christian Higher Education.(Briefly Noted)(Brief article)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... RENEWING MINDS: SERVING CHURCH AND SOCIETY THROUGH CHRISTIAN HIGHER EDUCATION by David S. Dockery B&H, 264 pages, $19.99 (paper) "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind," Paul commands the Romans. As the rich Christian heritage repeatedly attests, the gospel call involves ...
In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas.(Briefly Noted)(Brief article)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... IN PRAISE OF PREJUDICE: THE NECESSITY OF PRECONCEIVED IDEAS by Theodore Dalrymple Encounter, 129 pages, $20 Theodore Dalrymple is a man of prejudice, and he argues that it's a good thing. Good prejudices, Dalrymple writes, come before metaphysics and reflection. It is good, for ...
Interior Freedom.(Briefly Noted)(Brief article)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... INTERIOR FREEDOM by Jacques Philippe Scepter, 134 pages, $9.95 (paper) In a world that places more demands on people's shoulders than ever before--from keeping up with endless strains of e-mail to meeting the next deadline, from keeping the boss happy to keeping the spouse and ...
Rhyming Poems: A Contemporary Anthology.(Briefly Noted)(Brief article)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008 ... RHYMING POEMS: A CONTEMPORARY ANTHOLOGY edited by William Baer University of Evansville Press, 168 pages, $12 (paper) As editor of The Formalist throughout that journal's celebrated fifteen-year run, founder of the annual Richard Wilbur Book Award, and editor of two previous ...
Saved in hope: Benedict's second encyclical.(The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life)(Pope Benedict)
Feb 01, 2008; ... "Spe salvi facti sumus--in hope we were saved. So says Saint Paul to the Romans, and also to us (Rom. 8:24)." That's the opening of Pope Benedict's second encyclical. John Allen, a typically thoughtful reporter on all things Catholic, says the encyclical is a replay of "Ratzinger's ...
American preeminence, for better and for worse.(The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life)
Feb 01, 2008; ... Michael Northcott, professor of ethics at the University of Edinburgh, illustrates the embarrassing silliness of so much of the contemporary professoriate. In New Blackfriars, Northcott tells us that fear is being marketed to us by the Bush and Blair (now Brown) administrations under the ...
Islam and Christianity: changing the subject.(The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life)(Pope Benedict and Muslims)
Feb 01, 2008; ... After Pope Benedict's historic address on faith and reason at Regensburg University on September 12, 2006, a group of thirty-eight prominent Muslims from diverse schools of thought wrote him a letter in the hope of arriving at "mutual understanding." The thirty-eight grew to 138, and this ...
Five-point Calvinism, as many readers will know, refers to TULIP.(While We're At It)(Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and the Perseverance of the saints)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * Five-point Calvinism, as many readers will know, refers to TULIP. TULIP, in turn, refers to Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and the Perseverance of the saints. Put too briefly, total depravity means that, as a consequence of original sin, ...
In news reports and commentary, First Things is often referred to as a Catholic magazine.(While We're At It)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * In news reports and commentary, FIRST THINGS is often referred to as a Catholic magazine. In fact, we are ecumenically Christian and interreligious, with a particular interest in Jewish-Christian relations. But it is true that things Catholic receive what some view as disproportionate ...
I expect that Commonweal will continue to publish for many years.(While We're At It)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * I expect that Commonweal will continue to publish for many years. It has been around almost eighty years and, like America and the main voice of liberal Protestantism, Christian Century, it has an entrenched base in library and other institutional subscriptions established over ...
Misleading, too, is the statement that "history, especially the history of the Second Vatican Council, tells us that disagreement is often the work of the Holy Spirit.".(While We're At It)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * Misleading, too, is the statement that "history, especially the history of the Second Vatican Council, tells us that disagreement is often the work of the Holy Spirit." It is true that the theologians who greatly influenced the Council--for example, Marie-Dominique Chenu, Yves Congar, ...
Unlike the case of Mark Twain, the frequently announced death of the National Council of Churches (NCC) was not greatly exaggerated, but it was exaggerated.(While We're At It)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * Unlike the case of Mark Twain, the frequently announced death of the National Council of Churches (NCC) was not greatly exaggerated, but it was exaggerated. The last time we had occasion to comment on the NCC, it had to do with the organization's being maintained on life support by ...
"Those unremarkable Lutherans," as Matthew Rose, then our assistant editor and then a Lutheran, called them in a whimsical essay (February 2001), do not very often make the front page.(While We're At It)(Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * "Those unremarkable Lutherans," as Matthew Rose, then our assistant editor and then a Lutheran, called them in a whimsical essay (February 2001), do not very often make the front page. A brief exception was the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a body of 2.5 million members, when in the ...
The Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a statement on a book by Fr. Peter Phan, chairman of the department of theology at Georgetown.(While We're At It)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * The Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a statement on a book by Fr. Peter Phan, chairman of the department of theology at Georgetown. The book is Being Religious Interreligiously: Asian Perspectives on Interfaith Dialogue, and the bishops ...
There is in this issue a comment on the letter from 138 Muslim leaders, the unfortunate response initiated by the Yale Divinity School, and the very different response by the Holy See.(While We're At It)(Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism )(Brief article)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * There is in this issue a comment on the letter from 138 Muslim leaders, the unfortunate response initiated by the Yale Divinity School, and the very different response by the Holy See. Since September 11, 2001, many in the West have been taking a crash course in Islam, with particular ...
Catholic social doctrine from Leo XIII to Benedict XVI, Bernard Laurent relentlessly argues, is one of relentless "intransigence" against the Enlightenment, modernity, liberalism, and all their pomps and works.(While We're At It)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * Catholic social doctrine from Leo XIII to Benedict XVI, Bernard Laurent relentlessly argues, is one of relentless "intransigence" against the Enlightenment, modernity, liberalism, and all their pomps and works. That is an argument we are accustomed to hearing from ultra-traditionalists ...
The quest for Christian unity was the subject of Walter Cardinal Kasper's address to the cardinals at the November consistory.(While We're At It)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * The quest for Christian unity was the subject of Walter Cardinal Kasper's address to the cardinals at the November consistory. It is a useful tour d'horizon, highlighting developments discussed also in Avery Cardinal Dulles' "Saving Ecumenism from Itself" in our December 2007 issue ....
It must now be acknowledged that, since he became archbishop of Canterbury almost six years ago, Rowan Williams has been something of a disappointment.(While We're At It)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * It must now be acknowledged that, since he became archbishop of Canterbury almost six years ago, Rowan Williams has been something of a disappointment. All who know him can testify that he is a devout Christian and a most amiable man. He is also a theologian of distinction. But he seems ...
If you want to get into the intellectual thick of things related to advancing the culture of life, the annual conference of the University Faculty for Life is the place to go.(While We're At It)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * If you want to get into the intellectual thick of things related to advancing the culture of life, the annual conference of the University Faculty for Life is the place to go. The proceedings of the sixteenth conference, held at Villanova University, is just out--606 pages of papers ...
"A Catholic Call to Civility in Public Life" is issued by a distinguished list of Catholic laity, led by Thomas Melady, former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See.(While We're At It)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * "A Catholic Call to Civility in Public Life" is issued by a distinguished list of Catholic laity, led by Thomas Melady, former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. Civility is always in short supply and one can readily agree that "we need to keep in mind the common humanity that we share ...
Commentators who fear and loathe evangelical Protestants, and there are not a few who fit that description, oscillate between, on the one hand, warning us about the theocracy that the "religious right" is determined to impose and, on the other, reporting that the evangelical enemy is a spent force.(While We're At It)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * Commentators who fear and loathe evangelical Protestants, and there are not a few who fit that description, oscillate between, on the one hand, warning us about the theocracy that the "religious right" is determined to impose and, on the other, reporting that the evangelical enemy is a ...
Now this rather surprises me.(While We're At It)(opinions on bishops)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * Now this rather surprises me. I refer to a number of messages expressing concern that I am going soft on the bishops. The concern is apparently prompted by my favorable comment on "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," a statement adopted by the bishops conference (USCCB) at ...
It is seldom enough that there is a development that--upon examining it closely, turning it upside down and shaking it, walking all around it and probing it for weak spots--appears to be an honest-to-goodness no-doubt-about-it unqualified good.(While We're At It)(stem cell research)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * It is seldom enough that there is a development that--upon examining it closely, turning it upside down and shaking it, walking all around it and probing it for weak spots--appears to be an honest-to-goodness no-doubt-about-it unqualified good. But such seems to be the case with the ...
My colleague Joseph Bottum notes that, during the stem cell wars, the left routinely accused their opponents of being anti-science.(While We're At It)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * My colleague Joseph Bottum notes that, during the stem cell wars, the left routinely accused their opponents of being anti-science. This, he observes, is in contrast to the left in Europe, which has for years, in the higher consciousness of its keenly attuned environmental sensibilities, ...
Remember when, many years ago, the pro-life leadership decided to make a very big issue about partial-birth abortion?(While We're At It)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * Remember when, many years ago, the pro-life leadership decided to make a very big issue about partial-birth abortion? Not all pro-lifers agreed. Dissenters said it would distract attention from the main and massive reality of abortions in the early weeks and months of pregnancy, and a ...
Permit me to take this a step further.(While We're At It)(adult stem cells remember?)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * Permit me to take this a step further. Actually, several steps further, into the realm of the metaphysical and theological. One cannot help but be intrigued by the implications of the fact that these adult stem cells can be induced to "reprogram" themselves back to their beginning--all ...
A giant has fallen.(While We're At It)(Harold J. Berman)(Obituary)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * A giant has fallen. When I am asked about early influences on my thinking about religion and public life, I regularly cite Harold J. Berman's The Interaction of Law and Religion, a little book published in 1974. The argument of that book was expanded in Faith and Order: The ...
Last fall the school-voucher referendum went down to a crushing defeat in Utah.(While We're At It)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * Last fall the school-voucher referendum went down to a crushing defeat in Utah. It was a very ambitious proposal, coveting absolutely everyone. Some supporters thought it too ambitious. In any event, the state and national teachers' unions, plus other public-employee unions, predictably ...
"Evangelical and Catholic," writes a Baptist minister who is a skeptic about the project Evangelicals and Catholics Together, "are two radically different and incompatible ways of being Christian.".(While We're At It)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * "Evangelical and Catholic," writes a Baptist minister who is a skeptic about the project Evangelicals and Catholics Together, "are two radically different and incompatible ways of being Christian." In some ways, and with respect to some evangelicals, he may be tight. Faith in Action is a ...
One may as a general rule oppose quota systems, in the academy and elsewhere.(While We're At It)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * One may as a general rule oppose quota systems, in the academy and elsewhere. They introduce invidious discriminations and encourage sleight of hand in creating sundry forms of "diversity" other than diversity of thought. Fr. Wilson Miscamble, a distinguished professor of history at ...
It is hard to know what to make of the Russian walkout from the Catholic-Orthodox meeting in Ravenna, Italy, last October.(While We're At It)(Brief article)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * It is hard to know what to make of the Russian walkout from the Catholic-Orthodox meeting in Ravenna, Italy, last October. Rome says it is an intra-Orthodox dispute that must be resolved by them. And it does seem to be a dispute between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the ...
Rabbi Byron Sherwin of the Sperms Institute for Jewish Studies, in Chicago, is a man of views both definite and informed.(While We're At It)(Judaism)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * Rabbi Byron Sherwin of the Sperms Institute for Jewish Studies, in Chicago, is a man of views both definite and informed. See, for instance, his "Jews and the World to Come" in the June/July 2006 issue of FIRST THINGS. Writing in Judaism, the journal of the American Jewish Congress, he ...
You're possibly not familiar with this earlier version of the Cole Porter song.(While We're At It)(Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning)(Book review)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * You're possibly not familiar with this earlier version of the Cole Porter song: <Pre>You're the top!You're the Great Houdini!You're the top!You are Mussolini! </Pre> That's the way it was when Benito Mussolini was a hero of the left in this country ...
Manhattan is rich in architectural monuments to expired faith.(While We're At It)
Feb 01, 2008; ... * Manhattan is rich in architectural monuments to expired faith. On the Upper East Side, neighbors are unhappy that a handsome Christian Science Church has given up on religion altogether and rented the building out for the entertainments of the city that never sleeps. St. John the Divine, ...