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Society

Items on national and international social issues and reforms

Where Were Obama’s Friends?: Friendship under fire: “As for the supersized candidates, what strikes one most about them is their ‘aloneness.’ They look so solitary. Indeed, it is possible that the old and honorable notion of ‘standing with’ a candidate like Obama simply didn’t occur to his famous supporters this week. Everyone has become used to watching celebrity stars and athletes take it in the neck on their own. Even someone running for the nation’s presidency looks like just another personal crack-up.” Makes one pause.  (Daniel Henninger, The Wall Street Journal )

Thu 01 May 2008 • Responses: 0 • from Peter Edman • Link & Comments

Both Read the Same Bible: ‘On the crest of this historiographical wave comes The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, the latest work from the nation’s premier historian of Christian thought. In the opening pages, Mark Noll explains that his goal is not primarily to shed light on the causes or course of the war but rather “to show how and why the cultural conflict that led to such a crisis for the nation also constituted a crisis for theology.” That crisis centered on two questions: what the Bible had to say about slavery, and what the conflict seemed to suggest about God’s providential design for the country. Although “both read the same Bible,” as Lincoln famously observed in his second inaugural, Protestants North and South discovered that “the Bible they had relied on for building up America’s republican civilization was not nearly … as inherently unifying for an overwhelmingly Christian people as they once had thought.” In the end it was the force of arms, not the Word of God, that would resolve the sectional dispute.’ (Robert Tracy McKenzie in Books & Culture )

Wed 09 Apr 2008 • Responses: 0 • from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Muslims Outnumber World’s Catholics: "It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer,” the monsignor said. Formenti said that the data refer to 2006. The figures on Muslims were put together by Muslim countries and then provided to the United Nations, he said, adding that the Vatican could only vouch for its own data. When considering all Christians and not just Catholics, Christians make up 33 percent of the world population, Formenti said. (Associated Press )

Mon 31 Mar 2008 • Responses: 0 • from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Harry Potter & the Art of Dying Well: “Our attitude toward death defines in many ways how we live. The medieval theme of memento mori, the virtuous cultivation of the memory of death, acts as a counter to modernity’s vacillation between unhealthy obsession and tragic forgetfulness. . . . Readers of the final book are left to puzzle over, not just the mysterious powers of mercy and self-sacrifice, but also explicit references to the New Testament, the one from Corinthians cited above and a passage from Matthew, ‘where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ Harry encounters these statements on tombstones and knows neither their source nor their precise import. In that respect, Harry is a stand-in for most modern readers. Although he never explicitly formulates it this way, Harry’s great quest in Deathly Hallows leads him toward an understanding of the meaning of these scriptural passages, an understanding not just theoretical but eminently practical.” (Thomas Hibbs, National Review )

Mon 23 Jul 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

The ‘New Victorians’: ‘Wendy Shalit, who earlier wrote about “A Return to Modesty,” has a new book called “Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It’s Not Bad to Be Good.” She illustrates the point with an interview with the daughter of Erica Jong, whose book “Fear of Flying” practically launched the sexual revolution. Jong glamorized promiscuity as random guilt-free sex with strangers. “When you’re 12,” says Molly Jong Fast, “there’s nothing funny about your mother’s fourth wedding.” Molly describes her own promiscuity as a mistake. “I was sold a bad bill of goods.” Molly is married and signs her e-mails “mother of Max,” making sure you understand that she’s first a mother. So do a lot of other young moms.’ (Suzanne Fields, syndicated column )

Mon 23 Jul 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Addressing climate change: “As someone who lived under communism for most of my life I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants. Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism. This ideology preaches earth and nature and under the slogans of their protection – similarly to the old Marxists – wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning of the whole world.” (Czech President Václav Klaus, address to the U.S. Congress, March 2007 )

Thu 14 Jun 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Twilight of Sociology: Senior Fellow Bill McClay on sociology past and present: “. . . by treating the structures of society as infinitely malleable, sociology betrayed its calling: It ceased to study society in a profound way, acknowledging difficult truths, and substituted activism, usually aimed at an ungrounded notion of ‘social justice.’” (Opinion Journal)

Tue 06 Feb 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Western Europe’s America Problem: And it's not about Bush. “America is resented for everything and its opposite: It is at once too prurient and too puritanical; too elitist, yet also too egalitarian; too chaotic, but also too rigid; too secular and too religious; too radical and too conservative. Again, damned if you do, damned if you don't. . . . Fundamentally, the European views about America have little to do with the real America but much to do with Europe. Europe's anti-Americanism has become an essential ingredient in—perhaps even a key mobilizing agent for—the inevitable formation of a common European identity . . .” Perhaps Europeans should consider something more constructive? (Andrei S. Markovits, The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Tue 30 Jan 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Do The Smug Thing: Web 2.0 tracking site TechCrunch notes a new for-profit do-gooder site. “As you would expect, the site is filled with typical rants against Walmart and other easy to target companies. One Scottish company is being attacked because they ship scampi to Thailand to be hand peeled prior to being shipped back to the UK for consumption. . . . On the other end of the spectrum, anyone wearing and selling red stuff is celebrated because they, and apparently they alone, care about people with AIDS.” Even in an age of strict relativism, there's always somebody who wants to tell you what to do. (Michael Arrington, TechCrunch)

Mon 29 Jan 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

After Bush: Senior Fellow Bill McClay has a piece on the prospects for the American conservative movement grounded in an unblinking look at the historical record rather than our fickle memories. "The evangelical Protestantism that gives American religion much of its distinctive form and energy, and that fuels George W. Bush's own commitments, is a faith of personal and social transformation, constantly seeking to challenge the status quo. Thus, although evangelicalism can be a force of moral conservatism, it can also be a force of moral radicalism, calling into question the justice and equity of the most basic structures of social life." Very helpful perspective in particular on traditional conservatism and the war on terror. (Wilfred M. McClay, Commentary, reprinted in OpinionJournal)

Wed 17 Jan 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

A dangerous obsession: ‘Lofty talk about "social justice" or "fairness" boils down to greatly expanded powers for politicians, since those pretty words have no concrete definition. They are a blank check for creating disparities in power that dwarf disparities in income—and are far more dangerous.’ First in an important five-part series of columns starting December 26, 2006. (Thomas Sowell, Creators Syndicate)

Tue 02 Jan 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Dogma Without God: Fallen angels assault heaven at Christmas: “Atheists and the unchurched undervalue the extent to which they are getting a free ride on the social strength that religious-based virtue provides. It's one thing to write in a book that we don't need them. But I'd rather not run the real-world experiment of navigating without them.” (Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal)

Tue 02 Jan 2007 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

Anthropologist Foresees a Christian Renaissance: “French anthropologist René Girard, one of the most influential intellectuals of contemporary culture, thinks that a Christian Renaissance lies ahead. In a book published recently in Italian, "Verità o fede debole. Dialogo su cristianesimo e relativismo" (Truth or Weak Faith: Dialogue on Christianity and Relativism), the anthropologist states that 'we will live in a world that will seem and be as Christian as today it seems scientific.' ” (ZENIT news service)

Mon 18 Dec 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

A Conversation with British Philosopher Roger Scruton: Roger Scruton, a new Trinity Forum Senior Fellow and "England's most notorious philosopher," sits for an interview with Canada's CBC Radio on December 10, 2006. (link to audio) (RealAudio from Sunday Edition, CBC)

Tue 12 Dec 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments

The Good Book Business: “There is also concern that Bible publishers, for all their marketing ingenuity, have outsmarted themselves. Tim Jordan said, ‘There’s been research that has shown that half the people who come into a Christian bookstore intending to buy a Bible, with money in their pocket, leave without one, because they get overwhelmed.’” Also: “The problem, as she sees it, is that ‘instead of demanding that the believer, the reader, the seeker step out from the culture and become more Christian, more enclosed within ecclesial definition, we’re saying, “You stay in the culture and we’ll come to you.” And, therefore, how are we going to separate out the culturally transient and trashy from the eternal?’” A good discussion. The ESV blog link has other commentary. Worth pondering. (Daniel Radosh, The New Yorker (via ESV Bible Blog))

Tue 12 Dec 2006 from TTF Staff • Link & Comments