Edward T. Oakes

I spoke last week of the fictions of relativism and concluded with one of E.M. Cioran’s typically laconic aphorisms about the East’s greater honesty toward the absolute. Well, maybe. But maybe not. I once read a marvelous book by Dava Sobel called Longitude: The True Story of a Lone . . . . Continue Reading »

Ever since he coined the term “the dictatorship of relativism” shortly before his election as Pope Benedict XVI, the phrase has continued to haunt me. At first glance it sounds like an oxymoron: How can a relativist seek to impose a dictatorship? Aren’t dictators called absolutists . . . . Continue Reading »

In these hot days of August, who has energy for anything, including reading? Well, there’s "beach reading" of course, but that’s just the point. People can be induced to read books (novels mostly) that don’t burn up the little gray cells, but if I might hazard a guess, . . . . Continue Reading »

Paul of Tarsus: A Visionary Lifeby Edward Stourton.Paulist, 224 pages, $24. St. Paul is, to put it mildly, a controversial figure. Among Jews, Paul tends to grate on sensibilities even more than does Jesus. Actually, as to Jesus, one can detect a rapprochement, however wary, on the part of several . . . . Continue Reading »

I have just finished reading Jaroslav Pelikan’s Acts . The Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Brazos Press, 2006 ) . 320 pp. $29.99. Let it be said at the outset: the world is not exactly groaning for another multi-volume commentary on the Bible. Library shelves in divinity schools . . . . Continue Reading »

At least you can say this for Garry Wills”he isn’t afraid to change his mind. Whether that malleability is good or bad depends, I suppose, on your view of his political shift from right to left. As a Jesuit seminarian in the 1950s (he left the Society of Jesus well before ordination), he . . . . Continue Reading »

I once attended a lecture by a philosopher who, in the midst of a tirade against the Christian right, interrupted himself and admitted that his atheism also had a problem: “I hate to admit it,” he conceded, “but I am a qualia freak.” Among philosophers working on the mind/body . . . . Continue Reading »

Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy by John McGuckin St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press 430 pp. $22.95 paper All great writers, all important writers, sooner or later fall victim to the received wisdom of the secondary literature about them. Just ask Plato. How many people . . . . Continue Reading »

John Wesley (1703-1791), the founder of Methodism, proves to be a biographer’s dream come true. The man was a bundle of contradictions”and what biographer does not love to portray a human life torn asunder from within, thrashing about on the stage of history? As Stephen Tomkins explains . . . . Continue Reading »

Unlike its English and American counterparts, Scottish law allows three verdicts in criminal trials: innocent, guilty, and not proven. Several years ago, amateur Shakespeareans convoked moot courts in this country to decide who wrote Shakespeare’s plays: Was it the man from Stratford, or was it . . . . Continue Reading »