On the Road, Searching for Abe

Posted: Monday, June 4, 2007
There are at least 14,000 books on Abraham Lincoln, and even his greatest enthusiasts won't claim to have read a tenth of them. Do we need another? Yes, indeed. What Andrew Ferguson offers in Land of Lincoln is the geography of enthusiasm itself.   [Full Story]

Bill Moyers's Progress
A snapshot of his journey from the Johnson administration to the liberal high church.
Posted: Thursday, May 24, 2007
Aware of mounting criticism of his views, in a lengthy Christian Century interview Moyers blasted the "rise of an ideological partisan press that is contemptuous of reality," "serves up right-wing propaganda as fact, and attempts to demonize anyone who says otherwise."  [Full Story]

Unraveling India

Posted: Sunday, May 13, 2007
Ever since Queen Victoria presided over the British raj in India, statesmen, merchants, writers and missionaries have attempted to untangle the baffling contradictions of the fabled subcontinent that, according to British journalist Edward Luce, the author of the compelling In Spite of the Gods, may within a decade rival China in population and prosperity.  [Full Story]

African Independence
It isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
Posted: Monday, April 30, 2007
While in Africa during the 1960s researching three books on U.S. policy, I saw poverty, corruption, and a retreat from the rudimentary rule of law established by the British and French colonial powers. As Kempton Makamure wrote recently, "It is entirely possible that conflicts within independent states in Africa have caused more privation, deaths and stalled development than the colonial rule they have replaced."   [Full Story]

Universities and the Zeitgeist

Posted: Sunday, April 22, 2007
By the mid-1980s a brand of political correctness rooted in the radical 1960s had asserted itself in many American universities. The cast of heroes included flamboyant Third World politicians who, like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, delighted in thumbing their noses at the West while creating misery in their own countries.  [Full Story]

AIDS, Aid, and Africa
"Hey, brother, you have a problem."
Posted: Friday, April 20, 2007
In sub-saharan Africa an estimated 30 million people have the HIV-AIDS virus. Some 17 million have died so far, and the disease kills 5,000 adults and 1,000 children every day--a rate 20 times that of Western countries. The crisis is especially grievous because it adds millions of victims to those killed by tribal wars and genocide in postcolonial Africa.  [Full Story]

Kitsch on Capitol Hill
An unlikely symbol in the House.
Posted: Monday, April 2, 2007
In his recent book, God and America: A Perspective on the Public Square, Newt Gingrich focuses on the religious significance of the words and images carved on our greatest monuments, notably those dedicated to Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson.  [Full Story]

Carl Sagan's Scientific Search for God, Revisited

Posted: Monday, March 19, 2007
When Carl Sagan ventures into age-old and essentially religious questions he runs into trouble. The subtitle of his book, A Personal View of the Search for God, suggests far more than he is able to deliver. His approach is that of a confused pilgrim. Mr. Sagan never claims to have found God. But he toys with the idea.   [Full Story]

The Theologian and the Historian
When Barth met Schlesinger.
Posted: Thursday, March 15, 2007
Given Schlesinger's death on February 28 at age 89, it seems appropriate to recall his encounter with Karl Barth, which took place in my home in Chevy Chase. Since coming to Washington in 1955, I had felt impelled to get religious and political leaders to talk with one another--my rationale for establishing the Ethics and Public Policy Center in 1976.  [Full Story]

Green at Any Cost?
The environmentalists and nuclear power.
Posted: Thursday, March 8, 2007
It has not been convincingly proved that human activity has had any significant impact on the alternate periods of global warming and global cooling. Competent climate scientists are divided on this crucial issue. Fortunately, however, this complex debate does yield some certainties that virtually all scientists can agree upon and about which we Americans and others living in industrial societies can respond constructively.  [Full Story]