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Seeking Something Spiritual

After Heaven:  Spirituality in America Since the 1950's.By Robert Wuthnow.University of California Press.  277 pp. $29.95Shopping For Faith:  American Religion and the New Millennium.By Richard Cimino and Don Lattin.Jossey-Bass. 240 pp. (Includes CD_ROM.) $25. These books have as . . . . Continue Reading »

John Paul II on the American Experiment

In receiving the credentials of the Honorable Lindy Boggs as Ambassador to the Holy See on December 16, 1997, Pope John Paul II offered some pointed comments on the “credibility” of the United States and its world leadership. Herewith the complete text of a statement that bears close reading. . . . . Continue Reading »

Religion and Public Life

Under God: Religion and American Politicsby Garry WillsSimon and Schuster, 445 pages, $24.95 Garry Wills is an indefatigable iconoclast, and the icons that have felt the sting of his wit are as diverse in time as in form. They include ideas like the facile notion of Lockean hegemony in the . . . . Continue Reading »

What Crisis in the Black Church?

When we cut through the many good reasons that lead social scientists to study religion, we find ourselves in the end confronting questions about politics. Whether subtly or straightforwardly, with explicit or only veiled references to the Marxian axiom that religion is an opiate, the analytical . . . . Continue Reading »

The Many Causes of Environmentalism

The Woodstock Center at Georgetown University is where some distinguished Jesuits, and some less distinguished Jesuits, fiddle with their theological fretwork. A recent Woodstock Report is entirely given over to fretting about today’s favorite crisis, the environment. It comes with a recommended . . . . Continue Reading »

Edwards and America

America’s Theologian: A Recommendation of Jonathan Edwardsby robert jenson oxford university press, 224 pages, $26 At first glance it is surprising that an avowedly Lutheran theologian, steeped, by his own admission, in the European theological tradition, should find so much to recommend in . . . . Continue Reading »

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