It is harder to see what one seesthan anyone knowsbecause it is easier, far far easierthan on can suppose.That still point of the turning world—look! this light through the petal—where there are no shadowsand where it is never a problem never to have shadows,neither haunted by undaunted . . . . Continue Reading »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 . . . . Continue Reading »
The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History edited and translated with an introduction and notes by maurice a. finocchiaro university of california press, 382 pages, $50 cloth, $12.95 The Galileo affair lasted twenty years. It began pleasantly, almost innocently, in December 1613 in Florence at . . . . Continue Reading »
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 »
Paul Tillich famously wrote about ethics in the heteronomous, autonomous, and theonomous modes. To summarize all too briefly, heteronomous ethics is authoritarian, requiring submission to alien rules. Autonomous ethics is the conceit of modern liberalism that the individual is a law unto himself. . . . . Continue Reading »
Real Presencesby george steiner university of chicago press, 236 pages, $19.95 Of the major literary critics of our period there is, apart from Northrop Frye, but one other whose work requires us to reach toward such a term as “greatness,” and this is George Steiner. The shocking . . . . Continue Reading »