The German historian of manners Norbert Elias begins his book The Civilizing Process by asking how the “modes of behaviour considered typical of people who are civilized in a Western way” came about. Through a survey of etiquette books and other documents dealing with topics like table . . . . Continue Reading »
Truths are one thing, the way they are set forth is another. These words express what many have judged, for good or ill, to be the particular spirit of the Second Vatican Council. The words come, in fact, from the Council itself, from John XXIII to be precise. They are found in his opening . . . . Continue Reading »
On March 16, 1998, the Holy See released a long-awaited statement on the Church and the Holocaust, “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah.” (“Shoah,” which in its original Hebrew usage referred to destruction or ruin, is preferred by some over “Holocaust,” which . . . . Continue Reading »
This statement, originally titled “A Christian Women’s Declaration,” was issued on September 16, 1997 by the Ecumenical Coalition of Women and Society, a project of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy. It is reproduced here with the permission of IRD © . . . . Continue Reading »
In the spring of 1994, a distinguished group of Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants issued a much-discussed statement, “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium” (FT, May 1994). That statement, commonly referred to as “ECT,” noted a growing . . . . Continue Reading »
From the earliest days of Christianity, the Gospels’ resemblance to certain myths has been used as an argument against Christian faith. When pagan apologists for the official pantheism of the Roman empire denied that the death-and-resurrection myth of Jesus differed in any significant way from the . . . . Continue Reading »
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