God’s Politician: Pope John Paul II, the Catholic Church, and the New World Order by david willey st. martin’s, 258 pages, $18.95 Fifteen years ago, as the long pontificate of Paul VI drew to a close, a consensus on the qualifications for the next pope began to take shape among liberal Catholic . . . . Continue Reading »
Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America by robert hughes oxford university press, 210 pages, $19.95 This book immerses us in the discontents that derive from our sexual, ethnic, racial, economic, political, moral, and religious differences. Yet again we are taken over the familiar and . . . . Continue Reading »
No Longer Exiles: The Religious New Right in American Politics edited by michael cromartie ethics and public policy center, 153 pages, $18.95 To list the participants in the discussions from which this book emergedis to recommend the book most highly: George Marsden, Grant Wacker, Robert Booth . . . . Continue Reading »
Christianity and Darwinism The debate between Howard J. Van Till and Phillip E. Johnson (“God and Evolution: An Exchange,” June/July) sounds a lot like an argument about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. Unless one is a hopeless solipsist, the universe exists. And if it . . . . Continue Reading »
I hang upsidedown from the roof of your skull sleeping—my wings crossed over me like Pharaoh’s arms, locking in a wisdom millennial sands have leached and buried. We are here by the thousands. Light tilted upwards stirs us in a dark hoodoo: ripples of crepe, eyes like red sequins, fangs that . . . . Continue Reading »
I see one bumblebee heading over the fence and into the doorway of this shrunken Old Field’s Baptist Church. The trees are tagged with signs of modern advancement: KEEP OUT, BAD DOGS, as out of the big house comes a white-haired man saying he’s Harry Smith, maker of this miniature, and . . . . Continue Reading »
I have walked now for days on end with my eyes closed, thoughts centered at the point of my nose as I imagine a cat’s to be, drawn wink by sleepy wink forward from the brain until the inner resources are pruned purple into a pure moment of insignificance. I walk this way because I see better with . . . . Continue Reading »
(chanted to no tune in particular) BEFORE: by Julia Ward Howe Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on! Glory, glory, . . . . Continue Reading »
The Public Square Like many American Jews, Martin Peretz, editor in chief of The New Republic, had until now a deep inhibition about ever, ever visiting Germany. But he took the plunge and returns with some instructive observations about that country, and ours. Germans, he suggests, have almost gone . . . . Continue Reading »
The Children of Men by p. d. james knopf, 241 pages, $22 For some years now the novels of P. D. James—most of which feature Adam Dalgleish, London homicide detective and published poet—have been growing increasingly ambitious. In the early Dalgleish stories, as in most mysteries, the . . . . Continue Reading »
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