A Lesser Life

...This is about as helpful as a placebo...

...Roberts is hardly the first to make that claim, or to say Jesus has appeared to him...

...He is in his way as much a pioneer of the medium as Milton Berle, Edward R. Murrow, Ed Sullivan, or John Cameron Swayze...

...Moreover, many of her arguments against the Equal Rights Amendment and her plea for "special rights" for women are well taken and return ThsfWay My Cross FatherJerzy Popieluszko by Father Wrhad J. Wrenn A REGNERY BOOR A LESSER LIFE: THE MYTH OF WOMEN'S LIBERATION IN AMERICA Sylvia Ann Hewlett/William Morrow/$17.95 Brigitte Berger DSO 005 •4 ~ Poland's Communist government felt it had to murder Father Jerzy Popieluszka This collection ~~a0 of his sermons shows why...

...American women lacked publicly designed, delivered, and, of course, financed family support such as prenatal and child care, job-protected maternity leaves, a national family allowance, and a federally determined wage system that pegs women's work at "comparable worth" to that of men...

...ORAL ROBERTS: AN AMERICAN LIFE David Edwin Harrell, Jr./Indiana University Press/$16.95 Kent Owen 42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1986...

...Medical schools should be forced to teach more about addiction, the prevention of disease, and geriatric 6 Am erican women are locked into a no-win situation...

...A quote from one of her recent New York Times op-ed pieces supplies some premonitions: "As for abortion, we simply have to widen the pro-choice agenda...

...did so with more refined reasoning and with their anthropological, historical, and philosophical foundations securely in place As is to be expected, Hewlett shares the conventional contempt for Reaganites and the New Right...

...What in the world should the Lord of Hosts have to do with a bumptious Anglo-Cherokee-Welsh Okie, a high-school drop-out, the child of dirt-poor Pentecostal preachers...

...In con-sequence they find themselves "between the devil and the deep blue sea...

...Much of what she has to say about the shortcomings of the American women's liberation movement is not so novel, of course...

...The dodgy thing is to distinguish the saints and the prophets from the idol-mongers and the demagogues...

...Kent Owen is The American Spectator's Indiana editor...

...Starting with tent revivals in rural Oklahoma, Roberts's ministry quickly outgrew small-town pastorates, extending beyond the limits of his denomination Charlatan, liar, hypocrite, fraud, false prophet, con-man, blasphemer, huckster...

...As vice-president for economic studies at the Economic Policy Council of the United Nations Association, aided by a star-studded study panel—R...

...But even for those who declare themselves indifferent to religion, unless it bears on Let there be no mistake: A Lesser Life...

...His biographer, David Edwin Harrell, Jr., professor of history at the University of Alabama, liiscaloosa, appends the subtitle, "An American Life," to the book, and the additional emphasis suggests much more than the obvious...

...it seems to lure American feminism back from the wilder shores of madness, where much of it has been moored for all these years...

...The difficulties and frustrations the British-born author encountered in academia while trying to raise two Brigitte Berger is professor of sociology at Wellesley College...

...The Catholic Standard "The Church has a special message for tyrants of any stripe, and every now and then a special messenger comes along to deliver it with special force...

...Catholic New York celebrity Betty Friedan as well as family advocates Sheila Kamerman and Lenore Weitzman, Sylvia Ann Hewlett has succeeded in constructing a strategic platform to this end...

...or with the contention that the "male rebellion" (?) of the "hollow men" during that period was caused by the material demands and oppressiveness of family life...

...Presumably the same transgressions committed by their free church forbears against the perfection of Holy Mother Church or High Anglicanism...

...Moreover, Roberts has had to contend with a phalanx of critics and outright opponents who question the righteousness of his motives and methods...

...While "in some important ways the women's liberation movement has managed to reconstruct the language and the consciousness of the nation . . . the fact re-mains that they have not made a dent in the wage gap, and many are increasingly unable to reconcile motherhood with their professional aspirations...

...But in the case of Roberts what may, indeed must, set him apart is less the cultural background of his ministry than the fervor of his Pentecostalism and the relentlessness of his mission...

...The lapses in gram-mar, the herky-jerky gestures, the vaguely menacing set of his dark, leathery features, all serve to stress the patriarchal force of his presence...

...The usual offenses charged by churchmen against the preachers are cheapening, coarsening, and vulgarizing the Gospels...

...What Roberts brings to his preaching is a rough-hewn manliness, blunt, knotty, horny-handed...

...The Rev...

...Her unsavory and unexpected experiences as a young faculty member of the economics department at Barnard—a women's college to boot—led her to discover what has been evident to ordinary Americans for quite some time: American feminists, preoccupied with the female body, sexuality, language-policing, and gender politics, have been scandalously antagonistic to women whose values include children and family...

...Hewlett's tribulations in this academic center of feminism showed her that the passionately waged battles of "ERA politics" are marginal, if not irrelevant, to the great majority of American citizens...

...Considering the thrust and scope of Hewlett's argument, it would be a serious mistake to understand A 1#ccer Life primarily as an outspoken and long-overdue indictment of the American women's movement...

...whether he can sustain the pentecostal gift amid the importunities of the various academic sects is far from certain...

...Let us demonstrate on the streets and fight for the benefits needed to do a better job for the children we choose to have...

...The Republicans, for their part, have shown themselves singularly unable to present a credible alternative vision for social policy...

...There are even signs that (perhaps under Lenore Weitzman's intelligent influence) she has begun to understand a few things about the paradoxes of political action: vide her perceptive analysis of measures de-signed to benefit women-such as no-fault divorce—that have backfired and ultimately work to the advantage of men...

...European women, in contrast, "got it right when they decided to push not only for equal rights in the sphere of work but also for social benefits to ease the family responsibilities of working women...

...In the modern age it shocks the worldly to discover anyone whose passionate purpose is to obey the will of God...

...Charge my: ^ VISA ^ Master Card ^ American Express Account # 1111 1111111111111 Exp...

...Others such as Midge Decter, Jean Elshtain, George Gilder, and Allan Carlson have made similar observations regarding feminist frenzy and irresponsibility...

...I have enclosed a ^ check ^ money order of $9.95 for each book payable to: Regnery/Gateway, Inc...

...But even superficially, A Lesser Life reveals the same deplorable class bias and historical ignorance of the feminist politics it purports to debunk...

...Name: Address: City: State: Zip: TO ORDER BY PHONE: 800-448-8311 Call, for orders only, between 9 AM and 5 PM (Eastern Time) Monday-Friday...

...But Decter et al...

...His indecision is out of character...

...speaking in tongues, glossolalia, is the best-known manifestation, going back to the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles on Whitsunday, the seventh Sunday after Easter and the fiftieth day after Passover...

...What is one to do with analyses that declare the domesticity and "cult of motherhood" of the 1950s a deplorable aberration in Western history...

...It is the presence of a country man, not softened by city ways, holding in check a temper that could mean trouble If Roberts were but one more television evangelist, he would deserve little more than passing notice...

...Apart from Roberts's worldly success, there is the American feat of building an empire of sorts out of unlikely materials...

...When hen writing from her own experiences, Hewlett displays a good deal of common sense and offers some refreshing comments on the fads and foibles of child-rearing and supermomism invented by legions of experts and the media...

...But among his brethren in religious broadcasting he lacks the urbane graciousness of the late Fulton Sheen or the compelling intensity of Billy Graham...

...Among Protestant sects, Pentecostals are often sniffed at as "holy rollers" because of their ostensibly spiritual seizures...

...In recent years the Roman Catholic Church has produced a counterpart in its charismatic movement, which celebrates the palpable presence of the Holy Spirit in similar ways...

...Let us march in Washington for prenatal care, maternity benefits, job-protected parental leave and high-quality child care...

...Date: Signature: THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1986 41 women's issues full circle to the debates of an earlier, and saner, period in American history...

...The trouble with Oral Roberts is he persists in saying God tells him what to do...

...The question is neither rhetorical nor impious...

...They may find out to their regret that latching on to the fury of the pro-life movement is not a responsible substitute for a coherent policy of American family life...

...they and their children are in bad shape...

...Hewlett argues that although the 1970s constituted the decade of liberation for a lucky few, the vast majority of women "were left behind to cope with deteriorating economic and social realities...

...Medical students should get no federal aid unless they agree to spend two or three years in a federal doctor corps, working in places where doctors are scarce...

...American women, she contends, are "long on image and short on substance...

...As it is, he resembles a doctor who uses every advanced diagnostic gadget to find out what is wrong with his patient, and then tries to cure him by applying leeches...

...What makes him stand apart is the vision he is driven to fulfill: creation of a university and medical center instinct with the Holy Spirit, but second to none in academic and professional capabilities...

...Elementary and secondary schools should make health education "as compulsory as reading and mathematics...

...When all is said and done, Hewlett's book is yet another attempt to subsume the pervasive and persistent pro-family values held by most people under the statist principles of liberal politics...

...Her analysis of American family life remains on the surface only...

...Perhaps more than anyone else, Oral Roberts can be blamed for that...

...By now it should be evident to anyone who haseyes to see that the Swedish model of the modern welfare state, which continues to inform Hewlett's great vision of a good society, is thoroughly obsolete...

...One begins to suspect that the harshest criticism comes, both among Christians and beyond the pale, be-cause of differences in class, tastes, and manners...

...By redefining the core agenda of the collapsing women's movement, Hewlett may give feminism a new lease on life...

...Perhaps those who distrust Roberts are less annoyed by his free-form Christianity than by his talent for business organization...

...Ads for beer and wine should be banned from television, and print ads for alcohol or tobacco should be forbidden to use pictures of people...

...Such a man was Father Jerzy Popieluszko, and this book helps mightily to explain why that was so...

...Elsewhere, when Califano stops analyzing and starts proposing, he reverts to type, spewing out proposals for government action like grass cuttings out of a lawnmower: Employers should be required to provide health insurance...

...Such unyielding belief is especially disturbing to conventional churchmen who have learned to adjust themselves and their faith to the profane standards of modernity...

...The Myth of Women's Liberation in America, which like other similar ex-poses of American social life is a mixture of truths, superficial analysis, and plain ignorance passing for scholarship and erudition...

...To be vilified by the likes of the American Medical Association, the American Bar Association, the National Council of Churches, the American Civil Liberties Union, "60 Minutes," and other guardians of the common good should be proof that the victim is, if not a saint, perhaps a latter-day Job...

...ALA Booklist "An authentic and beautiful reconciliation of true patriotism with the Gospel of Christ...

...The Way of My Cross by Father Jerzy Popieluszko ------------------------------------ - Regnery Books 950 North Shore Drive Lake Bluff, Illinois 60044 Dear Sir: Please send me copies of The Way of My Cross...

...O. Anderson (Atlantic Richfield), Douglas A. Fraser (UAW), Henry Kaufman (Salomon Brothers), Gerald Ford, Alice Ilchman (Sarah Lawrence), and other luminaries—generously financed by both the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and spiritually guided by movement "A compelling collection...

...and the women's liberation movement is to be blamed for the sorry state of affairs...

...The Myth of Women's Liberation in America is an important book...

...Please have your credit card at hand...

...In fact, pentecostalism as a pan-Christian phenomenon is spreading rapidly in North and South America as well as in Africa and parts of Asia, notably Korea...

...care...

...The best he can do is to insist that "we have the re-sources, if we apply them effectively, to keep government in its place, to make fewer hard choices necessary, and to concentrate our collective wisdom on those choices we truly cannot avoid...

...The emerging platform, however, offers little solace for those who care for the family for its own sake, not as fodder for liberal strategists...

...Accreditation standards and procedures are as rigorous as John Calvin's theology and less lenient...

...More like Peter, the man of the people, than Paul, the man of the world, he takes command as God's straw-boss, giving orders, setting matters straight, bracing workers to the task...

...That he has brought the institutions into being is a fact...

...It is this baptism by fire that divinely seals the true believer in his faith, making him feel immediately the working of God's power...

...Some leading Democrats are beginning to realize this...

...Sylvia Ann Hewlett reaches this grim verdict in her widely hailed A Lesser Life...

...If Califano ever thinks as hard and as carefully about remedies as he has about causes, he would be a valuable source of guidance...

...There are no indications that she has bothered to reach out of the charmed circle of new-class literature on women, and truly ac-quaint herself and her study panel with family issues and their implications for society...

...Still it does come as an affront to those who feel themselves better qualified to merit the privilege because of purity of character and goodness of works...

...As he knows from history and personal experience, and as the reader knows from the preceding chapters, this is not the case...

...Because of a profound reluctance to apprehend the fundamental complexities of a pluralistic society, the book's policy suggestions are unable to add anything new to those of (for example) Kenneth Keniston and the Carnegie Council on Children, or Alfred Kahn and Sheila Kamerman's recurrent proposals...

...What is new, however, is the book's political potential...

...children considerably shook her faith in the grandiose claims of the American women's movement...

...While it is unlikely that it will live up to its publisher's heady expectations (to "change the way in which we live," no less), the book has the makings of providing much needed planks for the Democratic party platform, if only because it has the appearance of something new...

...The catchy title of the book and its anti-feminist rhetoric merely serve to conceal Hewlett's real purpose: to attack the "backward and barbaric" social policies under which American women are forced to labor and live, and replace them with a national family policy modeled on Sweden's...

...Any man who has had to endure such abuse for forty years is, to say the least, tough...

...That task has not been eased by the invasive force of television, now incessantly thrusting religiosity wherever electric current courses...

...moral issues (as it is prone to do), America's evangelists offend their sensibilities...

...If the Democratic party cannot divorce itself from this vision, it will increasingly become a minority party...

...Besides flaunting an obnoxious hostility toward individual choice, Califano acts as if government programs have no costs or unintended consequences, only benefits...