Surely, one may devoutly hope, Justice Scalia exaggerates. In his dissent from Planned Parenthood v. Casey (joined by Rehnquist, Thomas, and White), he develops the analogy between this case and the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857. What happened then is, in ways ominously parallel, happening . . . . Continue Reading »
The fourth estate now considers itself to be the first estate, and not without reason. In public affairs at least, the press has aspired to replace not only what used to be the first estate, the clergy, but also the nobility and the commons, the last presumably representing the people. In the . . . . Continue Reading »
To judge simply by the responses we have received, a good many readers did not like the editorial in the March issue, “Christians, Jews, and Anti-Semitism.” Some responses, we are sorry to say, gave all the appearances of reflecting the evil that the editors were intending to counter. On . . . . Continue Reading »
Some will protest that the question posed by that title is outrageously wrongheaded. To ask what we should do about the poor, they say, smacks of paternalism and noblesse oblige, reflecting a hierarchical mentality in which, the world is divided between “us” and “them.” . . . . Continue Reading »
Call it a public service. When National Review devoted almost an entire issue to William F. Buckley’s “In Search of Anti-Semitism,” an unsettled and unsettling set of questions was once again brought to the fore. That has to be done from time to time. One may be inclined to think . . . . Continue Reading »
Readers whose minds have not been numbed by all the media-generated sensations since then may be able to recall that back in the first part of November the nation was reportedly held in thrall by Magic Johnson’s announcement that he had the AIDS virus. More than one television anchor solemnly . . . . Continue Reading »
Ediorial: Moral Credibility After the Evil Empire: The Witness of IRD
From the January 1992 Print EditionWe are a month late in noting an anniversary that should not pass unnoted. 1981 witnessed the launching of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a venture that was to profoundly shake and partially reshape the social postures of mainline/oldline Protestantism.One might argue that IRD . . . . Continue Reading »
At year’s end the eyes of the world turn again to an infant who is, so Christians believe, the revelation of God to man and of man to himself. In the words of John’s gospel, “In him was life, and the life was the light of man. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome . . . . Continue Reading »
Democracy is still very much a minority phenomenon among the nations of the world, but it is hard to deny that there appears to be something like a democratic revolution afoot. According to Samuel Huntington of Harvard University (writing in The National Interest ), there have been three discernible . . . . Continue Reading »
Editorial: The Politics of Religious Freedom: A Remedy Reconsidered
From the October 1991 Print EditionMany of our readers have been intensely and rightly concerned about threatening turns in the Supreme Court’s already monumentally confused rulings on religious freedom. Things came to a head with the April 1990 decision in the case of Employment Division v. Smith, otherwise known as “the peyote . . . . Continue Reading »
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