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The Church’s Revolutions

In 1489 the Roman Catholic Church felt, and was, hemmed into a corner of the world. The view from Rome was of Africa and Asia long lost to heretical churches or to Islam, and Europe divided between Catholicism and Orthodoxy (itself seen as heretical), while Ottoman power advanced relentlessly up the . . . . Continue Reading »

Politics and the Sacred

Bret Stephens recently championed the “classically liberal concept of a neutral public square.” In this issue, Matthew Schmitz examines similar assertions by George Will. These accounts characterize any substantive basis for civic life as “illiberal,” even “theocratic.” They entail a . . . . Continue Reading »

Anti-Christianity in France

French aversion to Christianity shows up in the half-repentant Marxist left, but can also be found on the extreme right, with its mystique that despises love and mercy, and among centrists whose moderation assimilates faith to fanaticism. Continue Reading »

Liturgy of Liberalism

The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societiesby ryszard legutko encounter, 200 pages, $23.99 In The Old Regime and the Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville described the French Revolution as a religious movement: The ideal the French Revolution set before it was not merely a change . . . . Continue Reading »

Reckoning with Modernity

In the late summer of 1977, I made my way to New Haven, Connecticut, not yet twenty-two years old and afire to study theology at Yale Divinity School. At that innocent dawn of my theological life, I was surprised to discover that not everybody at YDS shared my passion for theology. People had other . . . . Continue Reading »

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