Various

Imagine There’s No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World? by mitchell stephens? palgrave macmillan, ?336 pages, $30 In June 1512, John Bukherst, from the village of Staplehurst in Kent, England, was convicted of heresy before the Archbishop of Canterbury. But Bukherst was as much . . . . Continue Reading »

Redeeming “The Prince”: The Meaning of Machiavelli’s Masterpiece ?by maurizio viroli ?princeton, 208 pages, $26.95 In Redeeming the Prince, Maurizio Viroli, professor emeritus of politics at Princeton University and now at the University of Texas, adopts a bold strategy: He dares . . . . Continue Reading »

UKRAINEJohn P. Burgess’s article “Christian Witness in Ukraine” (October) is flawed in several significant ways. First, he confuses Rus´—a medieval reality—with Russia, a modern one. Imagine François Hollande invading Germany to maintain the “unity of France.” Aix-la-Chapelle (today’s Aachen—in Germany) was indeed the capital of the Frankish realm. But France is hardly the Frankish realm.Confusing Rus´ and Russia is bound to recast Ukrainians as “reluctant Russians.” Thus, even the promotion—and safeguarding—of legitimate Ukrainian distinctiveness will inevitably be seen as “nationalistic” or “separatist.” Of course, trying to revive a “Rus´ realm” might be a nice—even “Christian”—idea if it weren’t for the fact that millions of Ukrainians have been murdered throughout the centuries by those trying to “preserve” such “unity.” Continue Reading »

UKRAINEJohn P. Burgess’s article “Christian Witness in Ukraine” (October) is flawed in several significant ways. First, he confuses Rus´—a medieval reality—with Russia, a modern one. Imagine François Hollande invading Germany to maintain the “unity of France.” Aix-la-Chapelle (today’s Aachen—in Germany) was indeed the capital of the Frankish realm. But France is hardly the Frankish realm.Confusing Rus´ and Russia is bound to recast Ukrainians as “reluctant Russians.” Thus, even the promotion—and safeguarding—of legitimate Ukrainian distinctiveness will inevitably be seen as “nationalistic” or “separatist.” Of course, trying to revive a “Rus´ realm” might be a nice—even “Christian”—idea if it weren’t for the fact that millions of Ukrainians have been murdered throughout the centuries by those trying to “preserve” such “unity.” Continue Reading »

UKRAINEJohn P. Burgess’s article “Christian Witness in Ukraine” (October) is flawed in several significant ways. First, he confuses Rus´—a medieval reality—with Russia, a modern one. Imagine François Hollande invading Germany to maintain the “unity of . . . . Continue Reading »

Catholic Marriage The good points about marital preparation that Robert Spaemann makes in “Divorce and Remarriage” (August/September) are obscured by some important insensitivities. ­Spaemann scornfully categorizes second marriages as “adulterous concubinages,” a term . . . . Continue Reading »

Which Barth? Whose Failure? A Reply to Matthew Rose Matthew Rose: “Barth agreed with the Enlightenment insistence on the historical and empirical conditions of our knowledge, only to observe that God himself became historical and empirical” (“Karl Barth’s Failure,” . . . . Continue Reading »

Reward R. R. Reno reports that there’s a $10,000 reward for anyone who can change Sam Harris’s mind about strict materialism (“Rewriting Nature’s Laws,” May). I’ve read just a few sentences of Harris’s work, and all of it attempted to persuade. Of course if . . . . Continue Reading »

Anyone who wants to understand the perilous condition of religious freedom in America should read this book. In lucid prose, University of San Diego law professor Steven D. Smith contests basic themes of the conventional story of American religious freedom and presents a provocative and compelling . . . . Continue Reading »

Putin, Catholicism I was rather disturbed by R. R. ­Reno’s column “Global Culture Wars” (April). I understand that First Things is a monthly, and perhaps he would have written this article a little differently in light of Russia’s invasion of Crimea. (At least, I hope . . . . Continue Reading »