Various

“Forget Not Love”: The Passion of Maximilian Kolbe by André Frossard, translated by Cendrine Fontan Ignatius Press, 199 pages, $11.95 In virtually every Catholic church in Poland today, one finds three portraits: of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, of Pope John Paul II, and of St. Maximilian . . . . Continue Reading »

Jews and Christmas How does one respond to the late—and highly respected—Jakob Petuchowski’s eloquent critique of those Jews who oppose the display of religious symbols on public property (“A Rabbi’s Christmas,” December 1991)? Not easily. But let me try. The story has been told . . . . Continue Reading »

Freud’s Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi Yale University Press, 159 pages, $25 This massively documented yet eminently readable text takes up the questions surrounding Freud’s last and conventionally derided book, Moses and Monotheism. Freud’s identity as . . . . Continue Reading »

Desires Right & Wrong: The Ethics of Enoughby Mortimer J. AdlerMacmillan, 200 pages, $22.95 The indefatigable Mortimer Adler returns with vigor to the argument that Aristotle provides the basis for a truly universal and normative ethic. Almost half the book is composed of appendices from earlier . . . . Continue Reading »

Why Christian Mission? While I agree with Richard John Neuhaus that Redemptoris Missio is highly important (“Reviving the Missionary Mandate,” The Public Square, October 1991), I worry that it is not nearly as “profoundly countercultural” as he believes. The six reasons he discerns that the . . . . Continue Reading »

The following declaration was produced by the Ramsey Colloquium of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York City. The Colloquium is a group of Jewish and Christian theologians, ethicists, philosophers, and scholars that meets periodically to consider questions of ethics, religion, and . . . . Continue Reading »

The Organizational Revolution: Presbyterians and American Denominationalism edited by Milton J. Coalter, John M. Mulder, and Louis B. Weeks Westminster/John Knox Press, 376 pages, $16.95 As more volumes in the “Presbyterian Presence” series become available, its value as a case study in the . . . . Continue Reading »

“Talmudic”⁠—Properly Understood In his otherwise fine article, “Why the News Makes Us Dumb” (October 1991), John Sommerville writes, “Belief in the first amendment is not to be questioned. In fact, the faithful show their devotion by a hundred Talmudic expansions on that simple . . . . Continue Reading »

The Evils of Capitalism While I agree with some of Peter Berger’s observations in “Capitalism: The Continuing Revolution” (August/September), I disagree profoundly with his model, several key assumptions, and his conclusion. First, the model. One of the reasons that economists tend to disagree . . . . Continue Reading »

On the Third Dayby Piers Paul ReadRandom House, 259 pages, $20 You can’t fault novelist Piers Paul Read for raising some intriguing questions around a fascinating pair of archeological conceits: What would happen if a skeleton bearing the marks of torture and crucifixion associated with . . . . Continue Reading »