It is a telling—and alarming—sign that following September 11, 2001 the two failed terror attacks involved people who were drawn to Islam while serving time in prisons. Jose Padilla, now known as Abdullah al-Muhajir, the man accused of plotting to build a “dirty bomb,” had been in . . . . Continue Reading »
Beginning in the thirteenth century, the three monotheistic religions parted ways, with the Jewish and Christian world going in one direction and the Islamic world going in another. We are still coming to terms with that split. But the three faiths still hold more in common than we typically . . . . Continue Reading »
Only two more Left Behind books to go and we’ll finally know how the world ends. I can hardly wait. I feel fortunate that I live at a time when someone finally figured out what the Book of Revelation really means. That someone is Tim LaHaye, creator and coauthor of the Left Behind novels, the . . . . Continue Reading »
In the dock are Pope John Paul II and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. If they get a conviction, it is possible, but not certain, that the prosecution will go after a long list of indicted coconspirators. The charges are very serious: disturbing . . . . Continue Reading »
The ongoing public debate over the legalization of assisted suicide draws participants whose primary concern is not the issue itself but who find it the ideal occasion to advance collateral social initiatives. Thus, as he revealed in the haunting polemic with which he began his notorious public . . . . Continue Reading »
One should hesitate to review a book that threatens pulling a muscle just by lifting it. Apart from the danger to one’s health, it likely will turn out to have been written by: 1) the unabomber or some other crank; 2) a fellow who unwisely declined the services of an editor; or 3) a genius who . . . . Continue Reading »
Conservatives face a daunting challenge today. On the most pressing moral issues confronting the country—many of them having to do with aspects of biotechnological research—the public is deeply divided, and the divisions are far from trivial. Take the issue of embryonic stem cells. Many . . . . Continue Reading »
Angels of Death: Exploring the Euthanasia Underground. By Roger S. Magnusson. Yale University Press. 306 pp. $35. Roger S. Magnusson opines that mercy killing should be legalized and regulated because, in no small part, “illicit euthanasia” is already practiced. But so too are incest and . . . . Continue Reading »
Next to the exponential growth of government itself, the most noteworthy feature of American political institutions in the past half-century has been the rise and acceptance of judicial supremacy. The Supreme Court is widely viewed today not only as the principal guarantor of the people’s . . . . Continue Reading »
J. Budziszewski’s article “The Second Tablet Project” (June/July) is the clearest, most cogent brief examination I have seen of the problem of doing ethics without God. I agree with him that any attempt to justify a system of ethics while denying its metaphysical basis is doomed to ultimate . . . . Continue Reading »