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 »
Judaism: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow by hans küng, translated by john bowden crossroad, 753 pages, $39.50 Readers of Catholic maverick Hans Küng’s works have come to expect of him encyclopedic volumes displaying both prodigious scholarship and sharp polemic. And in these respects, the . . . . Continue Reading »
From Synagogue to Church: Public Services and Offices in the Earliest Christian Communities by james tunstead burtchaell cambridge university press, 375 pages, $59.95 In the tired debate whether the priesthood is of the esse or the bene esse of the Church James Burtchaell offers a provocative . . . . Continue Reading »
Jewish Polemics by arthur hertzberg columbia university press, 259 pages, $27.95 Jewish Polemics is a collection of essays written over the past ten years or so by the well-known American rabbi, professor, and communal leader Arthur Hertzberg. The title of the collection is aptly chosen: anyone who . . . . Continue Reading »
Seven meters an hour, top speed, pulling closer the edge of asphalt you cannot see. Mizzling rain glistens your body stripped to the skin. You row, row for your life in air thick with whirlpools of danger. I cannot look at you without suffering your fragility. There reels from the morning sky a . . . . Continue Reading »
It is now well over three years since the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Scenes of Polish workers carrying Lech Walesa triumphantly on their shoulders, of students dancing on top of the Berlin Wall, and of throngs cheering Vaclav Havel in Wenceslas Square have been replaced by sickening images . . . . Continue Reading »
One sometimes gets the clearest sense that a movement is in deep trouble by considering not the weakest statements of its case, but the very strongest. So it is that sympathetic readers may come to deeply melancholy conclusions as to the state of liberal Protestantism after reading Peter Berger’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Blasphemy is the derogation of God. To conceive of God apart from His holiness is intrinsically impossible. But to derogate God is precisely to deny His holiness. Therefore blasphemy is intrinsically impossible. While I’m not sure the syllogism above would withstand severe logical examination, it . . . . Continue Reading »
Just when you thought it was safe to dismiss the American experience as a compendium of invasions, intrusions, and indiscriminate cruelties, along comes Dan Morgan to spoil the pretty, ugly picture. Correspondent for the Washington Post and a National Book Award nominee for Merchants . . . . Continue Reading »
“ . . . saw little of note except . . . fortunately the Duomo was on that walk . . . ”: from a letter The Duomo cathedral hung its own weather above you. A light fog, full-massed as gray silk, hovered as a helicopter might for some yet-to-ascend saint. You heard noise where hidden workmen . . . . Continue Reading »
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