Newman and His Age by Sheridan Gilley Christian Classics, 485 pages, $39.95 Wilfred Ward did it, Meriol Trevor did it, and, more recently, Ian Ker did it, and one might have thought that there was no need for another biography of John Henry Newman. But, as is often the case, we don’t know what we . . . . Continue Reading »
President Clinton’s decision to lift the ban against homosexuals in the military has opened a deep cultural divide in American public opinion that extends beyond the immediate issue to questions of morality, convention, and social order. Judging from the vituperation on the editorial pages and the . . . . Continue Reading »
What do the living know about the dead? I was called upon to wonder when the well-meaning camp director’s wife who knew parts of my family asked where I stood in relation to the brother who’d died, she had heard. Died? I said. Yes, I believe, cancer, she said. Oh, I said, that, I believe, was . . . . Continue Reading »
Too often Truth is out of favor Softened To a fault Yet, I hold fast To Christ—the Contrast Who only yields As flavor Is revealed By . . . . Continue Reading »
I had spent most of Saturday, February 29, 1992, Leap Year Day, working through a stack of books and notes I was using for a major paper on Transcendentalism, due in draft at Cleveland State University in the Graduate English program. Sunday afternoon, too, was reserved for this endeavor. Sunday . . . . Continue Reading »
When President Bush nominated Judge Clarence Thomas to a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court, liberals opposed to confirming the nomination at first directed critical scrutiny to statements the nominee had made in favor of employing “natural law” in constitutional interpretation. The . . . . Continue Reading »
America’s so-called mainline Protestant churches aren’t what they used to be. For generations on end, the Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and kindred denominations reported net annual membership gains. As recently as the 1950s their growth rate equaled or exceeded . . . . Continue Reading »
Twenty years ago, the U.S. Army directed me to help monkeys copulate. In order to carry out my mission to increase and multiply the lab animal population of the armed forces of the United States, I was placed under the direction of an eccentric old man (also named George), a civilian employee who . . . . Continue Reading »
Uses and Abuses of the Christian Right Your editorial “The Electoral Uses and Abuses of Religion” (December 1992) was an excellent and much needed corrective warning. However, there are certain elements in your statement that are troubling. First, it is clear that you are somewhat nervous . . . . Continue Reading »
The Public Square Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the retired pathologist who, as of this writing, has helped put eight women and one man to death, addressed the National Press Club. When it comes to the prudent use of body parts, he suggested, we are a wasteful society. “We use what’s around us to do what . . . . Continue Reading »
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