Last summer, billionaire hedge fund manager and major Republican donor Paul Singer put up $1 million to launch American Unity. His goal was to break down the Republican party’s opposition to gay marriage and thus remove political resistance to the triumph of gay rights. Singer and his billionaire . . . . Continue Reading »
Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians: The Religious Roots of Free Societiesby marcello peraencounter, 224 pages, $23.95 A former president of the Italian senate and coauthor with Pope Benedict of Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, Marcello Pera describes our . . . . Continue Reading »
In James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World, Stanley Hauerwas is quoted as follows:It is alleged that by definition a pacifist must withdraw from political involvement. ...I refuse to accept such a characterization because it implies that all politics is finally but a cover for violence. . . . . Continue Reading »
Is it the teaching of Christianity that man has dignity? I outlined my problem with this claim from a philosophical perspective here. Then I was rereading Philippians 2:Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with . . . . Continue Reading »
Every person who has experienced the power of faith and religious conviction bridles at the continuing intellectual hegemony of secularism in our culture. Scholars, religious leaders, or cultural trendsetters who can articulate the case for the continuing vitality of religion are prized. A . . . . Continue Reading »
Sometimes it takes days, weeks, or even months for insight into the significance of an obscure text to gestate. And then sometimes it merely takes a serendipitous intersection of disparate sources. In The Star of Redemption, Franz Rosenzweig presented “Christianity” as a worldly . . . . Continue Reading »
I was trying to locate some of the 0ld warnings about mixing religion and politics. So I searched for “God not Republican”. I was informed, however, that that “Campaign [is] Unavailable.” The “alert has expired.” Fuggedaboutit. Drop it. The crisis is . . . . Continue Reading »
Religion and Politics: “The Great Separation” I approached Mark Lilla’s new book with considerable interest and with the expectation of encountering a fresh way of thinking about perennial problems. The book is The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (Knopf). It is true . . . . Continue Reading »
Six months out of grad school and into our first jobs, my husband and I fell in love with a house, a beautiful, eccentric Victorian. It was, of course, a fixer-upper, with a few caved-in ceilings, and it stood on a block that might be called borderline—there were some neglected houses nearby . . . . Continue Reading »
Czeslaw Milosz was born in Szetejnie in 1911 and raised in Wilno, both of which are in present-day Lithuania. His family was part of the large Polish-speaking population of that city. For this reason he identified himself as a Polish writer. Living there through his university education, he was . . . . Continue Reading »