The ideas of “tradition” and “creativity” seem at first glance to be opposed and incompatible. Tradition says continuity; creativity says innovation and hence discontinuity. With the proper distinctions, however, it may be possible to show that the two are not only compatible but mutually . . . . Continue Reading »
People who talk overmuch about beginning a new phase of life often appear quite foolish. After all, we rarely know until much later the meaning of our past and the promise of our future. Our ignorance and confusion alone ought to suggest that at times of transition (like the beginning of a new . . . . Continue Reading »
“Vatican II,” George Weigel writes in Freedom and Its Discontents, “posed a basic challenge to the many monisms, religious and secular, ancient and modern, that continue to beset human life and the cause of human freedom.” The Council mounted this challenge to the monistic cast of . . . . Continue Reading »
What do modern Jewish thinkers make of Christianity? Is Christianity in their eyes still the oppressive, pervasive presence that medieval Jews experienced as Christendom? Is Christianity held to be that which fills the hearts of Gentiles with implacable contempt for Jews? Or is it a chastened, . . . . Continue Reading »
The Democracy Reader: Classic And Modern Speeches, Essays, Poems, Declarations And Documents On Freedom And Human Rights Worldwide edited by Diane Ravitch and Abigail Thernstrom HarperCollins, 330 pages, $35 A very useful anthology of almost a hundred readings. Regrettably, the . . . . Continue Reading »
With so many translations and study aids available, clergy and literate laity must from time to time make a decision about which edition of the Bible to adopt as their daily working edition. The Oxford Study Bible is a very strong candidate indeed. Its chief merit is the accuracy and . . . . Continue Reading »
Reaching for Heaven on Earth: The Theological Meaning of Economics by Robert H. Nelson Rowman and Littlefield, 378 pages, $24.95 For those unfamiliar with the historical emergence of the discipline of economics, it may seem that the subject matter of Robert Nelson’s book—the interplay . . . . Continue Reading »
Faith and Faithfulness: Basic Themes in Christian Ethics by Gilbert Meilaender University of Notre Dame Press, 211 pages, $22.95 This veteran of forty years of teaching no longer selects books for courses that fit into some tightly conceived outline but rather picks classics—or worthy . . . . Continue Reading »
There are numerous obstacles to making the connections between religion and public life. For some moderns, a quasi-religious commitment to secularism produces an overt hostility to religion in all its manifestations. For many others, religion is self-evidently a purely private phenomenon. In that . . . . Continue Reading »
It is a longstanding commonplace in Christian thought that Protestantism distinguishes its moral theology from that of Roman Catholicism by its rejection of natural law. The idea of natural law has long formed the spinal column of Catholic social teaching. Modern Protestantism, by contrast, has no . . . . Continue Reading »
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