With the apparent demise of Communism, if not of socialism, the other political pathology of modernity, nationalism, is returning to center stage. If scientific socialism carries the “progressive” idea of human universality to its extreme, nationalism carries the “reactionary” idea of . . . . Continue Reading »
For Christians, as for everyone else, the topic of sexual ethics is today one of widespread confusion, contention, and uncertainty. In this essay I propose to deal with the specific question of the kinds of promises and undertakings people ought to make when they engage in sexual relations. But I . . . . Continue Reading »
Ungodly Women: Gender and the First Wave of American Fundamentalism by Betty A. Deberg Fortress Press, 165 pages, $9.95 paper DeBerg of Valparaiso University makes the argument that the “first wave” of fundamentalism, around the turn of the century, is in fact the progenitor of today’s . . . . Continue Reading »
I I have been considering the ravens, who live without worrying and have no bins or barns And have no reaping machines. Yet they are fed well—their bodies sleek, gloved in black silk. With what a minor tempest They startle and settle, yet they are the poets of motion. Like folk songs their . . . . Continue Reading »
the wind's blown stars to powder in the sky's blueso the morning's pale and clear, soft as breath,those are storms' leavings,these horizons swept clean. we fill, we empty we connect and retract and sometimes each dream, every cell . . . . Continue Reading »
It is a pity that First Things has printed a review of my book Sham Pearls for Real Swine (January) that appears to attack me rather than deal with the issues my book raises. My book is not a continuation of my late father, Francis Schaeffer’s, work. Nor was it written out of a . . . . Continue Reading »
Out of all the tragedies and horrors of Communist rule in the last seventy years there emerges a blessing: the fact that Marxists and socialists were actually able to put their ideas into practice has meant that their defeat has been complete. In the East, as a result of glasnost, not only . . . . Continue Reading »
Newman did not regard himself as a theologian, and it would distort his accomplishments to call him one. He was that rarer and more comprehensive figure, a Christian humanist, who set his face against utilitarians of both the mind and the spirit. The spirit of Newman sought wholeness of vision: the . . . . Continue Reading »
I remember one of those 2:00 A.M. college bull sessions that gave a much younger me the beginnings of an education. On that night, we were arguing about Catholicism in Western Civilization: a force for good or evil? One roommate—predictably the son of an angrily lapsed Catholic—pointed . . . . Continue Reading »
About the public debate preceding Operation Desert Storm, two things may be said with some confidence. First, there has rarely been such a sustained (and in many respects impressive) public grappling with the moral criteria and political logic of the just war tradition. Administration officials, . . . . Continue Reading »
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