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This is a fantastic book dealing with a number of things, but mostly, how Christians have allowed themselves become marginalized in the world and its culture. Pearcey starts by showing how Christians have become their own worst enemies through a lack of self-education about their own faith, and worse, an "anti-intellectual" stance throughout the centuries that, as a result, has relegated Christiany little more than a superstituion even among its believers.

Pearcey then deals harshly with Darwinism, pointing out its obvious flaws and the blatant intellectual dishonesty behind it, smashing any seemingly-reasonable defenses of the philosophy to bits. These chapters alone demonstrate how Christians have failed to refute philosophies which should have never taken any foothold in the culture over time, and how Christians allowed this to happen.

The next section discusses how the reformation movement discouraged all the knowledge that great Christian minds had accumulated over centuries, and how Christians have often elevated emotion and feeling for any intellectual basis for faith. She also shows how Christians themselves have unknowingly swallowed bits and pieces of philosophies that are blatantly incompatible with Christianity. As you read through these sections, it's easy to understand how Christiany hasn't been taken seriously by some of the world's great minds in the past few centuries.

Finally, Pearcey finishes by indirectly answering the question she teases us with the whole book: What we, as Christians, should do about it. To sum it up, the answer is simple: It's time for us to become educated as to why we believe what we say we believe, and become salt and light in our own corners of the world. The book does a good job of outlining part of the case for the former, and to the latter, reminds us that, no matter our vocation, we can influence our cause just by being people of intergrity and treating others as Jesus would.

In a society where Christians, by and large, have grown intellectually flabby, this should serve as a wake-up call to all those who care about the cause. I have been around too many Christians who never challenged their faiths because they were afraid they might find that it wouldn't hold together. Pearcey was not afraid to do just that--walking away from the faith she knew as a child for years--but came back after an objective analysis as to the truths of Christianity versus those of other worldviews. Her story should be an inspiration for us all to dig deeper.

This is both an informative, historical book as to how Christianity got to where it is, and a work that has practical application. It should be required reading in Christian colleges and high schools, and I would strongly recommend that parents share this with their kids before going off to college, where their faiths will be challenged. Pearcey should be applauded for her work, as a book like this has been long overdue.

Imagine my surprise to find this article reprinted in Approach Magazine's 2005, 50-year retrospective. I still get goosebumps when I read this story spawned by an "incident", fortunately, not an "accident" in 1978 when I almost flew into the water during night carrier quals aboard the America. Even more ironic: My father was the commissioning CO of America as documented elswhere on this site a book about the (now sunk for USN research) ship.

Having survived the incident, I thought maybe I did fly into the water but it wasn't my time to go, hence the storyline for "Touch and Go with the Grim Reaper" GH December 10, 2006

John's right! Toxicity in the workplace has to be nipped in the bud or else it can lead to health problems and violence. Good article. Very entertaining. A must read for supervisors and employees alike.

John Henry Newman's Tract 90: Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles, originally published in 1841, may very well be the most important - albeit controversial - work of Anglican theology in the last 200 years. It is certainly the most important - albeit, again, controversial - commentary written on the Thirty-Nine Articles during that time period. If one wishes to understand the development of the Anglo-Catholic movement within Anglicanism, one must read Tract 90; if one wishes to understand the dissolution of Anglican confessional identity, one must read the same.

The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion was a statement of 39 points of doctrine that was drawn up over the course of the mid-16th century by bishops, archbishops and Queen Elizabeth I. It was less of a coherent confession than an attempt to rule out certain beliefs - particularly those of Roman Catholics, but also those of extreme Protestants such as the Anabaptists. Less a work of constructive theology, then, it set bounds to what orthodox theology would be considered to be for the Church of England at the time of the Reformation and Elizabethan Renaissance. Originally a side project of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who was actually more interested in the reform of canon law than the drafting of quasi-confessional statements, the Thirty-Nine Articles came to be as much a matter of confessional interests as they were a political project; ideally, Anglicans in the 16th century such as Richard Hooker asserted, every citizen of England was a member of the Church of England as well. Thus, believing the Church of England's doctrine meant adhering to the nation of England's politics. Many commentaries were written on the Thirty-Nine Articles over the centuries, the most influential being Gilbert Burnet's An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England: by Gilbert, Bishop of Sarum. With An Appendix, Containing the Augsburg Confession, ... Notes, and Additional References. by t, which became the official commentary in the American church (i.e., the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America) and exercised normative influence until Newman's Tract 90.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Newman's most controversial work has been much maligned and misunderstood. I don't think that many would argue Newman's points today - there is little room for arguing that someone such as Thomas Cranmer, the reforming mid-16th century Archbishop of Canterbury - really believed that "popish" practices such as devotion to saints could somehow be purified of their superstition and restored as a helpful part of Christian devotion. Newman, however, believed otherwise. What emerges over the course of Tract 90 is not a maligning of the Thirty-Nine Articles but both 1) an attempt to save them and keep them theologically and political normative, and 2) a close reading of the text itself that is both indebted to traditional Anglican commentaries - such as that by Burnet - but also indebted to other works of normative Anglican theology.

It is up to the reader to decide of Newman's commentary should carry any weight. I believe it should, at the very least because it proved to be a highly influential interpretation of the Articles, but at most because it was a work that attempted to make sense of the Articles in the context of England as a post-confessional state. Every Anglican has been affected by the Oxford Movement; it is not too much, in my mind, to claim that the Oxford Movement was the genesis of what we now think of as Anglicanism. Tract 90 has a privileged and crucial place in that development.

A classic tale of travel, intrigue and mystery from De Faoite. This story conjours images of pristine alpine valleys, steam trains from a bygone era and a nostalgic look at how things used to be. Worth a read.

And can honestly say he's actually as tenacious and talented as he appears. But what really speaks to the heart of his nature, and the nature of his heart, is his modest regard, his generous and adventurous spirit. He's' accomplished(now at age 27) what most of us only dream about. Watch this young man! He'll be teaching us how to be our best, full selves if we only listen.

Mr. Eilers has done a fantastic job of telling a little known piece of history. Tying the tribute that Lenwood Holo accomplished in 2004 to the Massey Harris Harvest Brigade of 1944 is very well told. The article tells of how the idea of Custom Harvesting was "born" during WWII. This was the beginning of custom harvesting as we know it today. Anyone interested in the history of either Massey Harris, custom harvesting or the 1944-2004 Custom Harvest Tribute should make this a "must read" article.

This is Elliott Abrams' review of a book "Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions." That book is edited by Robert Rotberg and Dennis Thompson.

As Abrams explains, the issue is clear. What does one do once a bad government is replaced? Does one take revenge? Should there be trials and punishment for the perpetrators of serious misdeeds? Or should there be a focus on truth, even if that means amnesties for some guilty officials?

I have a very simple view on this matter. Without truth, justice is not possible. So there is no choice. One wants both truth and justice. Second best is truth. Worst is neither. Justice without truth is not an option.

Of course, this does not mean that Truth Commissions are a good idea, nor does it mean that they have worked out well. But as Abrams explains, the book does show cases in which people did get a chance to tell their stories. Those stories would have come under serious fire in a trial. But in a Truth Commission, there was less need to challenge them.

Before reading this article, I would have thought it counterproductive to encourage people to simply tell their stories to a truth commission, without fear of being challenged. My guess is this would produce more lies than truths. But now I am less sure about all this. One reason is that some of the accused get to tell their stories as well. And given that they are amnestied, they can very easily confess to genuine transgressions while denying false accusations. So the Truth Commission system may indeed have something going for it.

Still, Abrams concludes that the critics of the Truth Commissions have the better argument. The problem is that justice really is not served. Outright murderers wind up with amnesty, and that is very far from an ideal solution. And here, Abrams makes a good point, namely that if Truth Commissions are indeed worthwhile, the argument has to be that they are a necessary evil. Given the loss of justice, they are not an unmitigated good. And arguments by those who defend such Commissions on the grounds that we need "healing," not "vengeance," do not impress Abrams at all. I have to agree with Abrams here. If people commit terrible crimes, I think we ought to bring them to justice if we have a clear opportunity to do so.

Having lived the corporate life style and truly suffered the effects of too many over indulgent lunches, I had to turn myself around or suffer a lifetime of illnesses and medications' side-effects, for which my cardiologist would have happily prescribed as a cure-all. There was a drug for hypertension, a drug for cholesterol. `Just don't worry about it' said he, we'll give you something for it. What he couldn't give me was a drug to cure the side-effects.

After reading this article, I realized that I needed to make the long trek back to health. I knew what I had to do and did it. Now I can still enjoy lunch, but I enjoy living a lot more. I found this inspirational, confirming, and inspiring. Thank you for writing it.

Arron Lewis

I know this author very well - he is a CPA with a wealth management firm that has extensive experience in the life settlement field. The piece ran last year in the premier magazine for accountants and financial professionals, The Journal of Accountancy. Author Jim Warring consulted with one of the top life settlement providers, Maple Life Financial, to author this piece that spotlights the many uses of life settlements. For those who are unfamiliar with the financial service discussed in this article, a life settlement allows a senior citizen to sell a life insurance policy that they no longer need or want and receive a lump sum cash payment greater than the surrender value. Although life insurance agents have been offering this service and making a substantial residual income from existing clients for some time, CPAs and other financial planners are now beginning to take advantage of this valuable option as well. This is definitely the place to start investigating this topic.

HOWEVER...why pay $5.95 for it when you can view the article for free elsewhere? I doubt the file here is a high-quality PDF stripped of advertorials that ran alongside it in the magazine, and if you need something of that high a quality, you will need to order it from ReprintBuyers online anyway. Just do a Google search for the title and enjoy the article!