Various

It is of course the case that only God knows what will happen in the next century and the next millennium. But we human beings are created with an irrepressible disposition toward the future, as well as a capacity to recall the past. In the last year we published a “millennium series” of . . . . Continue Reading »

Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium. By Donald E. Miller. University of California Press. 253 pp. $27.50.Writing in the Christian Century in 1955, Henry P. Van Dusen, President of Union Seminary in New York, claimed that a “new reformation” was changing the . . . . Continue Reading »

Copyright (c) 1999 First Things 98 (December 1999): 2-6. Progress––Moral and Other In an otherwise illuminating essay on “The Idea of Moral Progress” (August/September), Richard John Neuhaus errs when he says that “thirty million Americans who are today officially counted as living . . . . Continue Reading »

Copyright (c) 1999 First Things 98 (December 1999): 6, 8, 16, 24, 30, 36, 44. Lines Written on My Daughter Faith’s Second Birthday Why should the aspens shrink from death? In the clearing after fire they sift the sunlight through their leaves: a ripple shield, a spray of shade for tender . . . . Continue Reading »

The Pilgrim’s Progress: a Morality in a Prologue, Four Acts and an Epilogue. Composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Performed by the Royal Opera House Orchestra and Chorus (Richard Hickox, conductor; Gerald Finley as the Pilgrim). 2 CD set: Chandos CHAN 9625. $32 .97.No sex. Little violence. And the . . . . Continue Reading »

Of Law and Morality It is a profound service for Robert H. Bork in “Thomas More for Our Season” (June/July) to recognize a distinction between law and morality, and then retract that distinction out of fear of the disorder that would follow from “absorption with self.” What makes Judge . . . . Continue Reading »

Poetry Copyright (c) 1999 First Things 97 (November 1999): 14, 27, 33. Oriental for Robin, my daughter Last spring we planted a small Japanese maple. So meager and spindly, its few leaves curving over its pencil-thin stem like a derelict, half-open umbrella. We could only imagine this year’s . . . . Continue Reading »

The Catholic University as Promise and Project: Reflections in a Jesuit Idiom. By Michael J. Buckley, S.J. Georgetown University Press. 224 pp. $55 cloth, $22.95 paper. Michael Buckley, chronicler and critic of Western religious culture, ranks with fellow Jesuit Walter Ong, the esteemed interpreter . . . . Continue Reading »

Copyright (c) 1999 First Things 96 (October 1999): 2-10. To Bomb or Not to Bomb I hope I am not alone in my disappointment regarding Richard John Neuhaus’ analysis of the imbroglio in Yugoslavia (” The Clinton Era, At Home and Abroad,” Public Square, May ). The justifications offered by NATO . . . . Continue Reading »

Copyright (c) 1999 First Things 96 (October 1999): 24, 41, 55. Sometimes in Autumn An overcast day: gray clouds slide across the sky like platters on a table. The grasses lift up brown tassels from an undercoat of yellow; the grasses have stolen the sun’s yellow. The wind frisks cars as they . . . . Continue Reading »