What is the crisis of the West? In some cases the sense of this frequently asked if daunting question may be quite specific. It may refer, say, to an economic crisis: trade deficits, foreign indebtedness, or the collapse of the Third World. If something is not done immediately to cure this . . . . Continue Reading »
From a Christian point of view, the twentieth century might well be called the century of ecumenism. Several dates serve to mark the crucial stages of development. Among them are 1910, when the World Missionary Conference met at Edinburgh; 1925, the date of the Universal Christian Conference on . . . . Continue Reading »
For each of the past twenty-one years the Gallup Organization has conducted a nationwide poll on attitudes of the American public toward education. The latest results, like others in recent years, show an apparent contradiction between strong support for more parent choice among schools, and . . . . Continue Reading »
Reflecting on the rash of outraged protests against allegedly sexist, racist, and homophobic slurs erupting in our public life, New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen tries to get to the root of the matter. It all has to do with “consciousness,” or so it seems. Some offenses against approved . . . . Continue Reading »
Socialism: Past and Future by michael harringtonarcade publishing, 320 pages, $19.95 If one is going to be a socialist, Michael Harrington’s variety is perhaps the best kind to be. Before his premature death from cancer this past year, Harrington worked with Dorothy Day to help the poor in . . . . Continue Reading »
Women and Evil by nell noddings university of california press, 284 pages, $25 For centuries theologians and philosophers have been struggling with the agonizing and bewildering problem of evil. Believing Jews and Christians cannot escape the perennial dilemma of reconciling the existence of . . . . Continue Reading »
Trust and Obedience First Things has done me the favor of asking Professor Gilbert Meilaender to review my book, The Giving and Taking of Life: Essays Ethical (April). May I dialogue briefly with some of his remarks? He attends, in the first place, to my central argument: that the moral import of . . . . Continue Reading »
At the last rock of the last ledge of the last climb, retreat blocked, he went to the edge to look over his days and ways. The earth lay below in colors. He watched it with desire, but it was spread out far far below, and was unobtainable. At his foot was a green thing—a leaf, slick and . . . . Continue Reading »
Easy to forget, how shadows are light’s creatures, out of dark, out of thinning dark come delicately, then sharply. Sun puts them there. True to the last frond, bole, blowing crest, bush’s perimeter, by light shaped from darkness their elegant black duplications silent, accurate. On the hot . . . . Continue Reading »
Ordinary Time by a. g. mojtabai doubleday, 223 pages, $17.95 A.G. Mojtabai’s nonfiction work, Blessed Assurance, won the 1986 Lillian Smith Award for the best book about the American South. Now, in her fifth novel, Ordinary Time, in prose as clean and spare as the landscape which is its setting, . . . . Continue Reading »
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