I’m grateful for what I’ve learned from the letters to First Things about my exchange with George Weigel on the adventures of the U.S. in Afghanistan. These letters show that the questions raised in that exchange are lively; for that we should all be grateful. To Father Oakes (whose prose is as . . . . Continue Reading »
When my fantasies, and these extreme regrets, shut my eyes in sleep, I discover, before me, the risin spirit of my lover, who was, even in life, always a dream. Then across some desert, where I can barely see the endlessly distant horizons, I pursue my love without success. She fades from view, by . . . . Continue Reading »
David Tracy was my advisor at the University of Chicago Divinity School at the time he was developing the idea of the analogical imagination. The way he wove together all aspects of religious thought into an intricate fabric inspired me, even though my evangelical Protestant instincts kept me from . . . . Continue Reading »
According to the mainstream of the natural law tradition, the reality of God and of our duty to Him are among the things everyone really knows. They are part of “general” revelation; we have natural knowledge not only of the Second Tablet of the Decalogue, but of the First. Needless to say, . . . . Continue Reading »
Tendentious attacks on Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) are nothing new. Indeed, they have become commonplace. Yet Daniel Goldhagen’s recent 27,000–word essay for the New Republic, “What Would Jesus Have Done? Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church, and the Holocaust” (January 21, 2002), calls . . . . Continue Reading »
It is a truth seldom acknowledged that the most delightful art is also the most didactic. Jane Austen comes readily to mind, as does the best of children’s literature. Supposed counterexamples only prove the rule. Oscar Wilde is celebrated for his dictum that “bad art is always sincere,” but . . . . Continue Reading »
Nothing is more human than discontent with the human condition. And few aspects of human life inspire more discontent than politics. The longing to withdraw from, escape, or transcend the vicissitudes of political life in favor of a more perfect world permeates Western culture from ancient times to . . . . Continue Reading »
In February 1998, long before the September 11 terrorist attacks on America, Osama bin Laden and four other leaders of radical Islamist groups in various countries issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, calling for jihad against “the crusader-Zionist alliance” in the following language: In . . . . Continue Reading »
I’m a long-time Democrat. In 1972, I organized a group called “Evangelicals for McGovern/Shriver” and helped McGovern sweep—well, the great state of Massachusetts. As a Democrat, I have been deeply dismayed by how out of touch with the American mainstream the party has proven to be on . . . . Continue Reading »
Historians of American religion have been congratulating themselves of late on the booming state of scholarship in their field. In the past thirty years, according to the editors of a recent anthology, no field of U.S. history “has enjoyed a greater renaissance.” Moreover, what used to be . . . . Continue Reading »
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