Various

The Wine Of Certitude: A Literary Biography Of Ronald Knox by David Rooney Ignatius, 412 pages, $17.95 paper Any man who elicited the veneration of Evelyn Waugh and could do the Times crossword in his head without benefit of pencil deserves more than one biography. There have been biographies of . . . . Continue Reading »

Cranky and Getting Crankier In his June/July Public Square column, Joseph Bottum claims that the three infallible signs of cranks are that they have a theory about the Jews, a theory about money, and a theory about Shakespeare’s plays. This is a gross oversimplification that leaves vast swaths of . . . . Continue Reading »

Mortal Follies: Episcopalians and the Crisis of Mainline Christianity by William Murchison Encounter, 215 pages, $25.95 The Episcopal Church, grande dame of mainline Protestantism, is not what she used to be. Of course, we all know that, but William Murchison, longtime Episcopalian and columnist . . . . Continue Reading »

Helen Barrett Montgomery: The Global Mission of Domestic Feminism by Kendal P. Mobley Baylor, 420 pages, $39.95 Were it not for Kendal P. Mobley’s biography, Helen Barrett Montgomery might have remained an obscure footnote to both the women’s movement and Church history. . . . . Continue Reading »

Remembering Richard John Neuhaus The April issue of First Things is a beautiful and moving tribute to a great man. I have been a subscriber to First Things for many years and a reader for many more. The magazine has been extremely influential in my Christian development”in particular, the . . . . Continue Reading »

Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy by Roger Collins Basic Books, 566 pages, $35 At the beginning of his preface, Roger Collins, a medievalist and Honorary Fellow of Edinburgh University, admits that a one-volume history of the papacy is “probably far too ambitious an . . . . Continue Reading »

Facing Islam I was surprised to read such a distorted overall view of Christianity and Islam in First Things (Robert Louis Wilken, “Christianity Face to Face with Islam,” January 2009). The author completely ignores the drastic failure of Muhammad’s teaching in today’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us about Suffering and Salvation by Stephen J. Nichols Brazos, 192 pages, $17.99 How times change: Many of the blues musicians discussed in Stephen Nichols’ Getting the Blues were ostracized by the more religious members of their communities for . . . . Continue Reading »

Richard John Neuhaus May 14, 1936“January 8, 2009 I am deeply touched by the death of the Reverend Father Richard John Neuhaus. I have known him for more than ten years and learned to admire him for his zeal for the Catholic faith, his intellectual robustness, his courage, and his love of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Stem Cells Sell In “Stem Cells: A Political History” (November 2008), Joseph Bottum and Ryan T. Anderson make a plausible sounding case that the errors manifest in politicizing the science of embryonic stem-cell research will cause people to be more prudent in the future about mixing . . . . Continue Reading »