To understand fully the incalculable effects of Roe v. Wade it is necessary (though of course not sufficient) to understand the historical and legal context in which it occurred. When the decision came down in February 1973, the nation was embroiled in the Vietnam War and President Nixon had just . . . . Continue Reading »
Among the many notable decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in the area of religion was the 1963 case Abington Township School District v. Schempp, which held that tax-supported schools were only allowed to teach about religion. Meaning, of course, that government schools could not directly teach . . . . Continue Reading »
There is a medium-sized theological brouhaha stirring within the evangelical academy these days, and, unlike some of the other intra-evangelical debates of recent years, this one is about something really important: God. In 1994 five evangelical scholars, led by Canadian Baptist theologian Clark . . . . Continue Reading »
On many occasions the Supreme Court has declared that the religion clause of the First Amendment prohibits government from acting with the purpose of disapproving a particular religion or religion in general. For instance, in a colorful case involving a city ordinance restricting the practice of . . . . Continue Reading »
The Public Square Call it a pause or a hiatus or a bump in the road or a dead end. Such are among the ways in which informed parties describe the present moment in what forty years ago was less problematically referred to as “the ecumenical movement.” There is no doubt that the search for a . . . . Continue Reading »
To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders by bernard bailyn knopf, 185 pages, $26 About twenty-five years ago Bernard Bailyn transformed the study of the American Revolution with his Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. He not only swept the field of . . . . Continue Reading »
The anonymous alliterative Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the gems of Western medieval literature. It gives a colorful portrait of court life, of heaped tables fringed with silk, knights and ladies in stately order, “velvet carpets, embroidered rugs, . . . . Continue Reading »
In his classic Holocaust text, The Sunflower, Simon Wiesenthal recounts the following experience. As a concentration camp prisoner, the monotony of his work detail is suddenly broken when he is brought to the bedside of a dying Nazi. The German delineates the gruesome details of his career, . . . . Continue Reading »
After the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education ordering the desegregation of public schools in Topeka, Kansas, lawsuits promptly were brought to dismantle legally sanctioned segregation in other states. One of these was Arkansas. There, Governor Orville . . . . Continue Reading »
monastic missions: wall paintings in the monastery of st. antony at the red seaedited by elizabeth s. bolmanyale university press. 307 pp. $65 St. Antony is usually regarded as the father of Christian monasticism. He was deeply involved with the disputes of Arius and a staunch defender of Athanasius . . . . Continue Reading »
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