The Trinity Forum Update

“Commitment without openness leads to fanaticism, even terrorism. Openness without commitment leads to stark relativism.” —Harold Heie

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In this Trinity Forum Update we feature a new summer column and blog posts from Senior Fellow Joe Loconte, plus notes on new books from Dan Russ and Jean Bethke Elshtain. 

Recently on our Provocations Journal

We welcome your responses on these and other Provocations pieces.

• The Benefits of Conflict. Jo Kadlecek reviews Learning to Listen, Ready to Talk: A Pilgrimage Toward Peacemaking by Harold Heie. (819 words)
• Driving in the Fog: A paradox of revelation. Nathan A. Baxter reflects on the paradox of fog and the ways, by forcing us to slow down, it both hides and reveals. (1758 words)
• Temperature-Controlled Governments: On Community and the Individual Consumer. Pete Peterson looks at California’s response to its energy crunch and the problematic nature of responses from many people on the right. (1334 words)
• A Cultural Manifesto and Showcase. Senior Fellow William Edgar reviews T. M. Moore’s Culture Matters: A Call for Consensus on Christian Cultural Engagement—and highlights four major ways Christians have addressed the relationship of faith and culture. (2960 words)

Joe Loconte’s blog posts and columns

• Two Kinds of Tolerance. Modern democracies like the Netherlands have turned the principle of religious pluralism into a pretext for moral agnosticism. (600 words)
• Who's a Dogmatist? (300 words)
• Russert and the Crystal Ball Media (270 words)
• Another Voice for the Defense (268 words)

And from David Aikman’s column:

• Zimbabwe, the Scandal of Africa (1152 words)
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Supernatural (1160 words)
• Australia’s ‘National Sorry Day’ (980 words)
• Lebanon on the Brink (1090 words)

New from the Senior Fellows

Dan Russ has a new book (almost) out. Flesh-and-Blood Jesus: Learning to Be Fully Human from the Son of Man will be released in July from Baker Books. It's easy for most Christians to accept the Jesus who walked on water and rose from the dead. But what about the Jesus who got angry, doubted, struggled with fears, and faced tension with his mother? We'll have a review and excerpt posted next week.

Jean Bethke Elshtain’s Sovereignty: God, State, and Self, based on her recent Gifford lectures, has just been released by Basic Books. It is the culmination of over thirty years of critically applauded work in feminism, international relations, political thought, and religion and makes a bold argument that could open new ground for our understanding of our own culture and its past, present, and future.

Looking to read more from the Senior Fellows? We have recently added links to most of their books to our web site. You can find a list of selected titles, along with purchase information, at the end of each Fellow's page.

Welcome TTF Interns

We're pleased to welcome Mark Meador and Lauren Gasque as summer interns with the Trinity Forum. Mark is a John Jay Institute Fellow and will be attending the University of Houston Law Center in the fall. He will be contributing blog entries to Provocations this summer, among other duties. Lauren is a 2008 graduate of the Trinity Forum Academy and will be focusing on events.

Upcoming

Watch our site for T.M. Moore's review of Dan Russ's new book, plus Joe Loconte on Erasmus and religious tolerance.

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