Books

Books

A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America

Peter Steinfels

Divided church

Sep 06, 2003 reviewed by Dennis O’Brien
Today the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is on the verge of either an irreversible decline or a thoroughgoing transformation” is the topic sentence of Peter Steinfels’s extraordinarily valuable survey of the present state of America’s largest Christian community.

In Search of the Early Christians: Selected Essays

Wayne A. Meeks

Jesus people

Jul 26, 2003 reviewed by Bruce Malina
Over the past three decades Wayne A. Meeks has investigated the social world of the early followers of Jesus. “The emphasis on the social context of writing and meaning . . . has been perhaps the principal theme of my scholarship,” notes Meeks, professor emeritus at Yale.

Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic

Martha Beck

Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America

Rayna Rapp

The Future of the Disabled in Liberal Society: An Ethical Analysis

Hans S. Reinders

Choosing Naia: A Family's Journey

Mitchell Zuckoff

Put to the test

Jun 28, 2003 reviewed by Amy Laura Hall
Cover Story

Inequality and Christian Ethics

Douglas Hicks

The Common Good and Christian Ethics

David Hollenbach, SJ

What Government Can Do: Dealing with Poverty and Inequality

Benjamin I. Page and James R. Simmons

The New World of Welfare

Rebecca Blank and Ron Haskins, eds.

Mind the gap

Jun 14, 2003 reviewed by Harlan Beckley

Pineapple, an eight-year-old growing up in the Mott Haven district of the South Bronx, wanted to become a pediatrician, she told Jonathan Kozol.

Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire

Peter Brown

Inventing the poor

Jun 14, 2003 reviewed by Walter Brueggemann
Upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, former president Jimmy Carter remarked that the “growing gap between the rich and poor” is the most elemental problem facing the world economy. But the gap between the rich and the poor is also a very old problem.