The sixteenth century was a period of tumultuous change in Western Europe. The need for some kind of moral and intellectual shake-up within the church had been obvious for some time. Many religious and political writers of the fifteenth century had been aware of the weaknesses of the medieval church . . . . Continue Reading »
I am just postmodern enough not to trust “postmodern” as a description of our times, for it privileges the practices and intellectual formations of modernity. Calling this a postmodern age reproduces the modernist assumption that history must be policed by periods. Just as modernity created the . . . . Continue Reading »
Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions by søren kierkegaard princeton university press, 181 pages, $39 Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits by søren kierkegaard princeton university press, 442 pages, $45 Kierkegaard presented these two books of discourses to his . . . . Continue Reading »
Those who once spoke, or who speak, the language of the rights of man make up a most varied group: Jefferson and Mounier, Robespierre and Saint Just; Roosevelt but also Vyshinsky; John Paul II and Ronald Dworkin. Which is to say, this language has been used in a whole assortment of ways. Thus if the . . . . Continue Reading »
The Public Square The Nation is ecstatic. Its cover story “The Gay Moment” evinces high confidence that the media is right in declaring that we are now in “the gay nineties.” “Ten years ago there might have been one gay issue in the news every month or so,” says The Nation . “Now . . . . Continue Reading »
No Longer Exiles: The Religious New Right in American Politics edited by michael cromartie ethics and public policy center, 153 pages, $18.95 To list the participants in the discussions from which this book emergedis to recommend the book most highly: George Marsden, Grant Wacker, Robert Booth . . . . Continue Reading »
In North America, and increasingly in Europe, it has become a truism to say that the present situation is marked by pluralism, or multiculturalism. Some truisms happen to be true; this one certainly is. Nor is there any great mystery as to how this situation has come about. It is the result of . . . . Continue Reading »
Of late I have been reading John B. Meier’s A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus . I have enjoyed it, not least because the book is clearly and carefully written, even if the Jesus who emerges from these pages is not exactly the “startling” figure promised by the dust . . . . Continue Reading »
When Dr. George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, visited Pope John Paul II in May 1992, the two church leaders discussed the probable future ordination of women priests in the Anglican Church. That, the Pope said, “touched on the very nature of the sacrament of holy orders.” A Vatican . . . . Continue Reading »
Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition” an essay by charles taylor with commentary by amy gutmann (editor), steven c. rockefeller, michael walzer, and susan wolf princeton university press, 112 pages, $14.95 Last summer a man was arrested in Germany for walking down the street . . . . Continue Reading »
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