The Technological Bluff

Thirty years later, Ellul still has plenty to say in The Technological Bluff, obviously because of the newer, high technologies of the computer chip and the laser beam. And he remains as negative as ever. The technological “bluff” is the implicit assumption in Western society the technological progress, if used rightly, is a good in itself, and the good will always outweigh less-welcome consequences. What has happened, Ellul contends, is that we have become slaves of “technique,” as he calls it, subservient to its survival at all costs.

by Christian D. Kettler

After Ideology

The book asserts that modernity has reached a dead end that is the inevitable result of its own inner logic. That logic is best described as revolt against God. Here, Walsh’s debt to Eric Voeglin is evident. The modern revolt, Walsh argues, has its origins in the Gnostic claim that humans can, through a secret gnosis and an act of their own, transform themselves into the Divine. That Gnostic quest has lived on in various forms in the West, which include Comte’s positivism and Marx’s communism.

by John Farina

After Nature's Revolt and From Apocalypse to Genesis

The environment is increasingly becoming a religious issue, as a host of environmental advocates attempt to “green” the church. More than a dozen volumes have been issued over the past two years alone, and new books seem to pour forth almost every day. Among the odder contributions—at least to anyone who believes in orthodox Christianity—are After Nature's Revolt and From Apocalypse to Genesis, both from Fortress Press.

by Doug Bandow

Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour

Schoeck defines envy as “a drive which lies at the core of man’s life as a social being…[an] urge to compare oneself invidiously with others.” Denying the egalitarian dogma that envy is spawned by circumstance and can be cured by removing socioeconomic inequalities, he maintains, less flatteringly but far more believably, that envy is inherent in our nature, citing such compelling evidence as sibling rivalry among small children.

by John Attarian

Love and Profit: The Art of Caring Leadership

The book, Love and Profit: the Art of Caring Leadership by James A. Autry, arrived within a few days. Inside the fly cover was a comment by John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene, authors of Megatrends 2000. “The most caring (loving) book about management we have ever read. A real breakthrough. We predict it will become a classic.”

by William R. LaMothe

Understanding the Times

David Noebel ambitiously defends the biblical Christian worldview as “the one worldview based on truth” as he examines its chief rivals: Marxism/Leninism and secular humanism. In doing so, he underscores several significant points: First, beliefs matter. They are not simply “preferences.” A battle of ideas is a welcome advance beyond the anti-intellectualism of early fundamentalism, warm-hearted pietism, and lazy relativism. Second, beliefs have contexts and consequences.

by Todd Speidell

Beyond Liberation Theology

Humberto Belli is a Nicaraguan, the former editorial page editor of La Prensa, who, after a number of years in exile, returned to his homeland to help rebuild what the Sandinistas laid to waste. He currently serves as the Minister of Education, and is an enthusiastic Roman Catholic. He taught sociology at the University of Steubenville, and is the founder of the Puebla Institute, a center for communication about the situation of the church in Latin America.

by Rev. Robert A. Sirico

Birth of the Modern

Johnson presents a daunting tome of some one thousand pages filled with an interdisciplinary approach that views history as a whole, involving the interface between painters (Turner), musicians (Beethoven), scientists (Lyell), and ordinary people. This emphasis upon social history, avoiding the tendency of past historians to overemphasize political events, is common among contemporary historians.

by Christian D. Kettler

Galileo's Revenge

This dynamic is and always has been present in jury trials, and every trial lawyer knows it. Jury trials are ultimately a contest between truth and rhetoric, in which rhetoric often has the advantage. The validity of any jury trial system depends, then, on its ability to develop and implement evidentiary rules that neutralize this advantage, i.e., that gives truth an even chance against flimflam.

by Michael McElwee

Capitalism and Christians

The book jacket on Capitalism and Christians, the newest dispatch by Arthur Jones, assures us that this editor-at-large of the National Catholic Reporter is “an economist by training.” That fact makes the pervasive and remarkable confusions in this book all the more depressing.

by Jeffrey Tucker

The Loss of Virtue

Several years ago the Philadelphia Inquirer published an editorial outlining the absence of moral direction in the public forum as a consequence of the current understanding of the separation of church and state. The author argued that it is as though the embrace of any moral standards implies the adoption of certain religious tenets or the dogma of a particular church.

by J. Michael Beers

Good News for the Poor

The essence of what Jennings has extracted from Wesley is that the Christian ethic revolves entirely around providing for the poor. Moreover, the “rich” who do this are not just people living in great plenty but also those who have attained only sufficient shelter, food, and clothing to sustain life at a reasonable level of comfort–in other words, anyone in the lower middle class.

by Herbert Schlossberg