The absence of economic incentives to fight AIDS might make an observer feel, apart from any moral, sectarian or theological considerations, that a religious revival alone can save South Africa from eventually consigning perhaps a third of its population to death.
Discussion with a philosopher who takes technology seriously. Technology is more than a tool, it’s an inducement, and it’s so strong that for the most part people find themselves unable to refuse it.
Myths, science, religious experience and empirical research are frequently set in opposition, but it’s an irony that some scientists can contribute to a recovery of what many people in churches have abandoned: a belief in a divine force outside ourselves, a healing presence deep within that still speaks through dreams and visions.
Education in a multiracial society should place emphasis on growth in character and virtue. It is certainly time that advocates for racial justice began to insist that schools take on the high mission of developing such high qualities.
Executive Al Campanis lost his job with the Los Angeles Dodgers which served to expose the fact that our culture has embraced tolerance without making a comparable commitment to the principle of equal rights. Tolerance of the rights and opinions of others is a virtue, but when that tolerance becomes a substitute faith, it reveals its emptiness.
By late 1998, Namibia was the third most HIV-infected country in the world, with more than one in five adults estimated to be HIV-positive. Even more disturbing was that the churches were "conspirators in the silence," doing nothing to address the crisis.
Who will try to salvage the human wreckage of the green felt jungle? There are 6 million compulsive gamblers in the U.S., many living in Nevada. Because of the state government’s interest in increasing gambling revenues, there is little concern for rehabilitating those addicted to gambling, and the churches offer little help to these victims.
Drawing on her own experience as a compulsive overeater and dieter, Mary Louise Bringle maintains that the sin of gluttony is not against temperance but against trust, and that the remedy lies not in resorting to "caloric Pelagianism" but in following the path of grace.
The radical incarnation of the power of God in "the halt and the maimed" -- the powerless -- is such a compelling irony as to have revolutionary potential for atheist and Christian alike. The "question of God," for Harrington, is really a question about God’s guilt.
A global economy without a global community is morally bankrupt. One thing is certain. The migrants will keep coming.
Trudy Bush reviews three books which deal with the phenomenal growth of aging in the last few decades. Many stereotypes of old age are untrue. Many problems with aging need to be addressed.
Review of a book about food politics: For the sake of profit large corporations conspire with the government to manipulate and confuse consumers in the food they eat.
(ENTIRE BOOK) The author summarizes the thoughts of Hannah Arendt, then uses them as a framework to ask whether America is slipping into a new kind of totalitarianism.
Because of the need for constant blood transfusions, about 90 percent of severe hemophiliacs have been exposed to the AIDS virus. Perhaps as many as 50 percent of these will contract the disease.
The great majority of immigrants coming to America are Christian, so immigrants do not represent the de-Christianization of American society but the de-Europeanization of American Christianity.
Mr. Westbrook hoped that LBJ would fulfill the promise of southern liberalism.
The author spells spell out the implications of Skinner’s thought for religion. Skinner forces us to face up to the formidable reality of genetic and environmental conditioning and the elusive nature and scope of freedom.
Review of a book on the consequences of slavery in America. The reluctance of African-Americans to "air dirty laundry" in public is grounded in a justifiably defensive posture. Anyone growing up in America should be aware of the twisted nature of those bent on preserving the notion of white supremacy.
Legal segregation is dead, yet America is more segregated in some respects now than a century ago. We need redemption, but we too easily put a redemptive spin on history. We don’t do ourselves any favors by producing a false historical narrative.
Perhaps the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a sign of a new world community in which the religious traditions will find common ground. Jews, Christians and Muslims do agree that rights are gifts from God, and that people have duties toward one another and God that require the recognition of fundamental human rights.
If one goes out into the world of the disabled, one will soon discover that, as always, there is only one world – that of the able-bodied. As Christians we are not asked to play God and decide about another person’s quality of life. We are asked only to love God and our neighbor, to be God’s agents on earth, not by taking away hope but by giving it.<
In The Shame of the Nation, Kozol reveals what school is like for the almost three-fourths of black and Latino students who attend "apartheid schools." In Tearing Down the Gates, Sacks documents the fierce war being waged to keep public education segregated.
The authors discuss the difficult problems facing Social Security, not only the overwhelming medical aspects, but the philosophy of the right of adequate financial retirement. They also offer some possible solutions.
Dr. Jenkins is critical of many aspects of the American Indian history and culture as presented in the new National Museum of the American Indian and wonders why so much of importance is left out.
Our rights are protected by the Constitution, but our exercise of those rights is governed by our moral disciplines. Civility entails treating fellow citizens as people of goodwill—which is a risky act of trust. Laws on sexual harassment and "hate speech" sprout up when people do not share a code of civility.
Our ambivalences in the areas of abortion, euthanasia and elective suicide call us to coordinate our scientific knowledge with moral wisdom. Although the global problems in these areas are compelling, we cannot expect to resolve them without first reforming our personal values and life styles.
The author says the moral cost involved is the reason why she believes embryonic stem cell research is not consonant with Christian faith.
The U.S. subsidy program is not only problematic for Americans but also disrupts the global food economy. It is not so much a means of stabilizing family farms as a way of supporting agribusinesses.
The Christian Community has paid little attention to work as a religious issue. As technology makes jobs increasingly specialized, work is becoming meaningless, alienating and dehumanizing.
The danger of the "conspiracy theorists" lies less in such beliefs themselves . . than in the behavior they might stimulate or justify. Should they believe that the prophesied evil predictions had in fact arrived, their behavior would become far more difficult to predict.
When the average American child spends nine hours a week playing video games we need to ask what sort of a worldview are the games causing? Are they teaching what it means to be human, about decision-making, about social roles, about living in the real world? In this world there is no socialization, no engagement with a live opponent – it’s a very lonely place.
The tobacco industry likes to portray itself as just another American business, but the facts point to precisely the opposite conclusion. The author suggests what individuals can do to curb the tobacco industry.
We must resist the claim of any government that it represents some mystical "general will of the people," thus relegating its opponents to the categories of subversive, subhuman or counterrevolutionary. In the age of electronic torture, computers and sophisticated behavioral controls, the Leviathan of the modern state, here and elsewhere, must be resisted.
A review of a book that details the decline of useful work for men and the resulting loss of masculine identity.