Various

Uses and Abuses of the Christian Right Your editorial The Electoral Uses and Abuses of Religion” (December 1992) was an excellent and much needed corrective warning. However, there are certain elements in your statement that are troubling. First, it is clear that you are somewhat nervous and . . . . Continue Reading »

The Book of Legends/Sefer Ha-Aggadah: Legends from the Talmud and Midrash edited by Hayim Nahman Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky Schocken, 897 pages, $75  Anthologies are frequently described as “treasure troves” of this or that. But The Book of Legends really is a treasure trove of . . . . Continue Reading »

Abortion Wars (cont.) I read “Abortion and a Nation at War” in your October 1992 issue with interest, and might have found it persuasive if I had an open mind on the subject. But I do not have an open mind on the subject, and don’t see how any decent person can in light of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Fathers and Sons in Black and White After having read the article by Russell E. Saltzman entitled “Better Than Their Fathers” in your October 1992 issue, I’m a bit puzzled. Why did the First Things editorial hoard accept this piece? Other than the fact that it was written by a Lutheran . . . . Continue Reading »

Theology and Dialogue edited by Bruce D. Marshall University of Notre Dame Press, 302 pages, $14.95 paper. These “essays in conversation with George Lindbeck” are also essays in deserved celebration of a thinker who has done as much as anyone in the last half-century to advance ecumenical . . . . Continue Reading »

Pluralism, Nay & Yea From S. Mark Heim’s discussion of “Pluralism and the Otherness of World Religions” (August/September) I get the impression that today’s Christianity has little to do with God. It seems to be more interested and active in such trendy cultural issues as liberation . . . . Continue Reading »

The Founders of the Western World: A History of Greece and Rome by Michael Grant Scribner’s, 351 pages, $27.50 Michael Grant has written so many books about the Greeks and Romans that his latest reads like a textbook. As he acknowledges in the introduction, the present book is a shortened . . . . Continue Reading »

Beyond Good Will Alan L. Mittleman’s “Christianity in the Mirror of Jewish Thought” (August/September) sets forth an uncommonly interesting and well-crafted thesis. Considering the trivialization of the Judeo-Christian dialogue, its reduction to an exchange of condescension on the one side . . . . Continue Reading »

The following statement appeared as a full-page advertisement in the New York Times during the Democratic Convention this past July. Over the next months and years, the American people will confront again the question that Lincoln posed at Gettysburg: whether a nation conceived in liberty . . . . Continue Reading »

Covenant Of Love: Pope John Paul II on Sexuality, Marriage, and Family in the Modern World edited by Richard M. Hogan and John M. Levoir Ignatius Press, 328 pages, $14.95 For those who have had enough of the dull and deadly conformism of recent decades, a manifesto for a sexual revolution that . . . . Continue Reading »