That the world should end in an orgy of pain was inconceivable at my conception in the Panama Canal Zone where the hydraulic locks were emblems of the unity of oceans. But the hydraulic harmony was striated with tropical diseases and now cancer where was torrid procreation; day . . . . Continue Reading »
Q. Who made you? A. (Melissa Murphy, Age 10): Who makes me you should say! I co-creates me ev’ry day. My tender psyche I unlocks & with my mental pencil box I brightly crayons, without fault, My very very own gestalt & so I comes to be alert To all my pain & all my hurt & then when . . . . Continue Reading »
As a geographer, I learned years ago that my fellow countrymen are not only uninformed about the location of places and things; they are uninterested and, indeed, resentful when someone suggests that it might be helpful for them to know where in the world they are. It took last year’s budget . . . . Continue Reading »
In the course of a very long life, Malcolm Muggeridge made many enemies, but he surely made more friends, among whom it is one of the great pleasures of my life to have been included. His enemies could be found both to the left and to the right. Those on the left are easy to account for: by . . . . Continue Reading »
In the aftermath of the victory over Communist domination of Eastern Europe, previously hidden divisions are surfacing within the churches that played such a crucial role in that struggle. For example, the recent book on religion in the Soviet Union by Michael Bourdeaux of Keston College documents . . . . Continue Reading »
As Communism loses its menacing posture and its threat recedes globally. Western concentration is beginning to focus increasingly on an old and inscrutable foe: Islam. The vast natural resources of the Middle East, the birthplace of Islam, coupled with the inherent political instability of the . . . . Continue Reading »
You have given in First Things almost twelve pages to Phillip E. Johnson (“Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism,” October 1990 and “A Reply to My Critics,” November 1990) and less than four pages to his critics (“Responses to Phillip . . . . Continue Reading »
I have got materials toward a treatise,” Jonathan Swift wrote to Alexander Pope in September 1725, “proving the falsity of that definition of animal rationale, and to show it would be only rationis capax.” The “treatise,” published a year later, was Gulliver’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Some books—the detective novel is the most obvious genre—must be read as they are written, front to back. Peeking ahead spoils everything. Others, Hebrew texts and now Robert Jay Lifton and Eric Markusen’s The Genocidal Mentality are better approached (though for different . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1948, a young American minister from the conservative Bible Presbyterian Church moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, to serve as a missionary to Europe. Intending lo work primarily as an evangelist, this earnest pastor was relatively sequestered from the contentious and obscurantist tendencies of . . . . Continue Reading »
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