Religion in American Public Life
Living with Our Deepest Differences
Commissioned by the American Assembly of Columbia University to "help reverse some of the most difficult and divisive forces in our society," this book works to create a bridge between public life and religion.By Jean Bethke Elshtain, et al
(W. W. Norton & Company, 2001)
Category: Books by the Fellows
The Jane Addams Reader
Presents Jane Addams’s remarkable ability to frame social problems in an ethical context, and discusses her unwillingness to succumb to ideological dogma, her political courage, and her lifelong devotion to civic and moral life. 432 pages.By Jean Bethke Elshtain
(Basic Books, 2001)
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The Face of Truth
Lifting the Veil
By William Edgar
(P & R Publishing, 2001)
In this volume, William Edgar seeks to answer the questions: Can God be known? Hasn’t science disproved the Bible? How can a good God allow evil? Aren’t all religions pretty much the same?
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Long Journey Home
A Guide to Your Search for the Meaning of Life
By Os Guinness
(Waterbrook, 2001)
Follows the approach used in our seminar curriculum, The Journey.
Paperback, 224 pages.
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Building a Healthy Culture
Strategies for an American Renaissance
By Don Eberly, ed.
(Eerdmans, 2001)
Essays by well-known thinkers argue for the importance of cultural health in maintaining a free and civil society and explore the theme of cultural renewal in many different sectors of life — family life, vocations, the media, and more.
Foreword by Senator Sam Brownback, and contributors including Stephen H. Balch, Kevin Belmonte, Elayne Glover Bennett, T. William Boxx, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Don Eberly, Amitai Etzioni, John Fonte, Mary Ann Glendon, Stephen Goldsmith, Cherie S. Harder, Elizabeth L. Haynes, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Wade F. Horn, Leon Kass, Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Lickona, Joseph Loconte, Herbert London, Elizabeth Lurie, Terry Mattingly, Joe McIlhaney, Michael Medved, Eric Miller, David G. Myers, Kenneth A. Myers, David Popenoe, Robert Royal, Amy L. Sherman, Curt Smith, Wesley J. Smith, John G. West Jr., William B. Wichterman, and Christopher Wolfe.
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Civilization’s Fight
Before and After September 11, 2001
By David Aikman
(2001)
Journalist and author David Aikman discusses the atrocity and tragedy of September 11 as a challenge both to the U.S. and to the whole of the civilized world, suggesting that, as with all crises, it could turn into one of the great national and diplomatic opportunities for the U.S. as it seeks to lead the world against one of the most savage outbursts of barbarism in decades.
Download “Civilization’s Fight” as a PDF (64K)
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Painting as a Pastime
By Winston S. Churchill
Foreword by Os Guinness
(2001)
Taking time away alone from the daily stresses is increasingly important for refreshment and clear thinking to direct one’s life.
Time pressure and drivenness are defining marks of our modern world—“25-hour days,” breakneck “24-7-365” schedules, omnipresent BlackBerrys, and packed Palm Pilots dictate how people live today. But in such a high-tech era, it is a low-tech traditional discipline that offers the greatest relief and perspective: Solitude.
As Winston Churchill observes in his essay, “Painting as a Pastime,” our Fall 2001 Reading, change is vital to relief of pressure. For Churchill, time spent alone painting provided a meaningful and necessary course of mental refreshment, a hobby he acquired during a trying period of political failure. He also discusses other beneficial and solitary diversions in his essay. Senior Fellow Os Guinness unwraps Churchill’s message for the twenty-first century audience, which often avoids solitude and mistakes drivenness with true purpose.
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Confessions of a Wandering Soul
By Alonzo L. McDonald
(2001)
Not typically autobiographical, these “confessions” reveal the shaping of a soul and God’s active presence in our lives.
When you look back on your life, what do you see? For many in this age of modern accomplishments and humanist thought, their lives have been ones of their own making—they are “masters of their fates, captains of their souls.” Life has been only what they have made of it—good and bad, success and failure. Senior Fellow Alonzo McDonald, however, sees his life differently—a rich and varied journey guided by God’s own hand.
In the Winter 2001 Reading, McDonald tells his story, his “Confessions of a Wandering Soul.” By any standards McDonald has led an interesting and successful life, with five decades in media, business, academia and government. But now in retrospect, he recognizes the “Guiding Hand of the Creator,” seeing how God has protected and directed his life, though allowing his choices. Distinctly molded by the Depression South yet rebelling against the faith of his family, McDonald pursued—and achieved—money, recognition and power. But at the height of his professional success, he began his own faith journey that has given true meaning to his life, redefining his character, relationships and pursuits.
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Amazing Grace
The Great Sea Change in the Life of John Newton
By John Pollock
Foreword by Os Guinness
(2001)Download this Reading as a PDF (236K) (see note below).
A Trinity Forum exclusive.
In a day when true “life change” has been reduced to image makeovers and PR spin, the story of John Newton, featured in this Reading, is a refreshing example of one person’s dramatic turnaround. Contrary to the idea of “contrition chic,” where there is no sincere desire for change—merely the appearance of it—Newton’s deep transformation speaks of the possibility of change for us all. The author of the beloved hymn “Amazing Grace,” Newton was no pious hymn-writer. He had a cruel past as a slave trader and rapist, but he became a lead abolitionist, and his life story influenced emancipation crusader William Wilberforce—helping spark the movement to end slavery throughout the British Empire.
Biographer John Pollock, author of The Trinity Forum’s best-selling reading William Wilberforce: A Man Who Changed His Times, leads the reader through Newton’s troubled youth, his dramatic conversion, and renewed life. In the foreword, Os Guinness puts Newton’s story in context for us, comparing sincere repentance with conversion and today’s PR image makeovers.
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An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture
Scruton shows just why culture matters in an age without faith, and gives an extended argument, drawing on philosophy, criticism, and anthropology, against the "post-modernist" world-view.By Roger Scruton
(St. Augustine's Press, 2000)
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Who Are We?
Critical Reflections and Hopeful Possibilities
Jean Bethke Elshtain finds hope in the recovery of personhood by exploring the internal and external trappings that so easily lead us to forget how to be faithful to something other than ourselves.By Jean Bethke Elshtain
(Eerdmans Pub Co, 2000)
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Real Politics
At the Center of Everyday Life
Advocates a via media politics that avoids unacceptable extremes and serves as a model for responsible political discourse by championing a civic philosophy that tends to the dignity of everyday life.By Jean Bethke Elshtain
(The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000)
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The City of Man
In this subtle and wide-ranging book on the Western intellectual and political condition, Manent argues that the West has rejected the laws of God and of nature in a quest for human autonomy, and in doing so have lost a sense of what it means to be human.By Pierre Manent
Foreword by Jean Bethke Elshtain
(Princeton University Press, 2000)
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Moral Maze
A Way of Exploring Christian Ethics
A discussion of the causes of the moral dilemmas Christians find themselves in today, Moral Maze examines the sources of Christian principles and how their values offer an alternative to modern conceptions.By E. David Cook
(Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2000)
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A Student’s Guide to U.S. History
By Wilfred M. McClay
(Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000)
Paperback: 102 pages
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