Remarkable changes have taken place within the Roman Catholic Church under the papacy of John Paul II. As the twentieth century draws to a close, we see in retrospect that this century has witnessed in sheer numbers alone more deaths and wholesale destruction of human life and institutions that any previous. Yet even in the midst of such depressing circumstances, worldwide, Catholics find themselves in a dynamic, effective, and revitalized institution that, according to some, now ranks among the...

Advocates of liberty as the highest political virtue are regularly confronted by what I will call the libertarian accusation. When facing a staunch defense of liberty, especially economic freedom, conservatives and collectivists alike often nervously reply, “but isn’t laissez faire just morally dangerous? Don’t we need government to restrain powerful business interests? Isn’t it the only way we can stop greed, pollution, and oppression?” In such cases liberty is simply identified as libertarianism, where unbridled freedom trumps all moral,...

In the last century, every important economist aspired to write plete treatise on economic thought. The idea was to build up an airtight theory, primarily by use of deductive logic, to explain how people e a central human predicament: Material desires always exceed resources, so what system should societies adopt in order to meet limitless needs and e prosperous? Building a theory from the ground up was the means of demonstrating a theory’s validity, allowing the reader to evaluate...

The political resurgence of America’s evangelical community raises anew ever-important questions about religion and politics. In The Politics of Reason and Revelation, John West revisits some of those questions: “Does religion have a political role, and if so, what should it be? What are the advantages of religion in politics? What are the dangers? And how can people of faith bring their religious beliefs to bear on public issues without dividing citizens along religious lines and infringing on the...

We hardly need another polemic about the failure of America’s “war on poverty.” After decades of bitter wrangling and torpid inaction, there is at last a broad consensus that the welfare system is a cure no less malignant than the disease it was intended to remedy. Liberals and conservatives, politicians and program administrators, social workers and taxpayers have all been forced to acknowledge that the poor are not best served by our current lumbering and impersonal entitlement bureaucracy. They...

In the past three years on visits to church-based urban ministries nationwide, I have interviewed dozens of down-and-outers who have e ers: ex-welfare recipients, victims of domestic violence, former drug addicts, ex-cons. When I asked them what helped them turn their lives around, almost all responded, “A friend who cared.” Effective ministries know that friendship is a powerful poverty-fighting tool. Tragically, though, many church benevolence programs modities—cash, clothing, and groceries—over relationships. In today’s welfare reform climate, as greater responsibility...

The most fruitful and majestic tree in the history of the world was the one on which hung its Savior, Jesus Christ. Today there is a growing trend among some environmentalists to look past the incarnate expression of God's love and see only a violated and barren tree. This trend toward reinterpreting symbols and the created order is an outgrowth of a larger crisis in the belief that God is both Creator and Father. Uncertainty about God also calls...

In 1977-78, a group of scholars gathered at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to produce an interdisciplinary book on environmentalism from a Christian perspective. Earthkeeping in the Nineties was a serious attempt at integrating Christian faith and the insights from several disciplines. That volume was revised substantially and reissued in 1991. The revised edition builds on the scholarship of the first and represents an important contribution to the ongoing discussion of environmental issues. The book is particularly strong...

Who munism? Western analysis (and not a munists) first pointed the finger at the economic incapacities of Marxist-Leninist states. In a world defined by silicon chips and fiber-optic munism–it was argued–just pete. This gimlet-eyed focus on the economic causes of the collapse always seemed, though, an oddly Marxist “answer” to the puzzle. Happily, more thoughtful analyses based on a better understanding of the cast of characters in the gripping drama of the Marxist crack-up are now available. That Pope...

In the decade or so preceding her death this past spring, the noted scientist and occasional politician, Dr. Dixy Lee Ray, earned a reputation as the nation's most insightful critic of modern environmentalism. In a letter written three years before her death, she summed up what she had learned, observing that environmentalism, “as we e to know it in the waning years of the twentieth century,” is “anti-development, anti-progress, anti-technology, anti-business, anti-established institutions, and, above all, anti-capitalism.” Many in...

The authors of Eco-Sanity have addressed a formidable challenge in bringing empirical analysis to the religious subject of environmentalism. By looking at a wide array of issues, they give readers a solid sense of the diversity of environmental problems as well as the recurrent similarities. They have done mendable job, and I admire their efforts. However, I encourage the authors and sympathetic readers to defer optimism about the impact of this book's important perspective. We should carefully separate our...

The book is actually pilation of papers that were delivered at a conference held in November, 1990, at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Following a preface by editor Michael Cromartie, the book consists of four chapters. Each chapter contains a paper that was presented at the conference, followed by a formal response from another conference participant, which in turn is followed by more ments from other participants. The book concludes with an afterward by George...