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The Fifties Without Soul

This is not a book review, it’s a complaint.I have been reading—and, I confess, enormously enjoying—David Halberstam’s The Fifties (Villard), yet another of his blockbuster best-sellers. It’s great nostalgia, wonderfully evocative, and above all, about my generation. Like . . . . Continue Reading »

The Limits of Reconstruction

Judaism Faces the Twentieth Century: A Biography of Mordecai M. Kaplan by mel scult wayne state university press, 433 pages, $34.95 Many of Mordecai M. Kaplan’s contemporaries and students—he had plenty of both over the 102 years of his life—considered him a brilliant religious . . . . Continue Reading »

Christian Conviction & Democratic Etiquette

According to a bit of street wisdom that has worked its way into the national vocabulary, “You got to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.” But since the opposite of everything is frequently, if not always, true, we might, on the matter of explicitly Christian rhetoric and the American public . . . . Continue Reading »

Rites of Spring

Office of WellnessCalifornia State University at PocoTo: The Poco CommunityFrom: Chelsea Rabinowitz-Hakamoto, Wellness CoordinatorRe: DatingAs spring approaches and with it, in all likelihood, an increase in dating activity, the Office of Wellness has been asked by the President to coordinate all . . . . Continue Reading »

Christians and Postmoderns

We are living at a time near the end of the world. Not that our age is apocalyptic: apocalypse means an uncovering, a revelation, and revelation is what we lack. And not that our age is eschatological: eschatology means the discourse, reason, science, the logos of last things, and all that . . . . Continue Reading »

The Big Lie Continued

Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memoryby deborah lipstadt free press, 278 pages, $22.95  Assassins of the Memory: Essays on the Denial of the Holocaust by pierre vidal-naquet, translated by jeffery mehlman columbia university press, 205 pages, $27.50Ever since the end of . . . . Continue Reading »

A President in Process

It turns out, in retrospect, to have been a most ironically timed meeting. The White House Communications Office had arranged for nine representatives of the religious press—nicely balanced as to denomination and theological inclination—to meet with the President on December 17. That . . . . Continue Reading »

A Peculiar Little Test

Every two or three years, at a small, elite New England university, I offer a graduate-level course on “Nature Writing.” The students, as you might guess, exhibit a keen interest in birds, blossoms, bugs, and bears. Despite shared tastes, the composition of the class is impressively diverse, a . . . . Continue Reading »

Woodstock Comes to Washington

If any further proof were needed that the Woodstock generation has taken over the federal government, President Clinton’s “AIDS Czar,” Kristine Gebbie, gave a speech a few months ago at a conference on teen pregnancy that should put the matter to rest. (Her office attempted to rewrite the . . . . Continue Reading »

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