The Culture of Disbelief:

...It Amendment "from a guardian of reli- is that fear that, for example, the New York gious liberty into a guarantor of public sec- Times stokes with its periodic breathless, For the child in all of u6...

...His previous book, Reflecfree of parochial exclusion and into the Carter's central contention is that demo- tions of an Affirmative Action BabyAmerican mainstream, and who probably cratic politics, the arena in which minori- Carter is black-was a courageous attempt believed, in any case, that they had a right ties try, through persuasion, to transform to think freshly about race and racial justo expect better...

...As Carter puts it: "There are, we are whether it was appropriate for First Lady taught by our opinion leaders, religious Hillary Rodham Clinton to be seen wearmatters and important matters, and disaster ing a religious symbol, a cross, around her arises when we confuse the two...

...And it is on their the serious reception it deserves, it ought gressively more brittle and ideologically ideas, not on the fact of their religiousness, to engender some badly needed dialogue rigid over the last two decades...

...With this book, family, Sarfatti (nee Grassini) inherited it can now be said that few women have a spark of intellectual curiosity, fanned $14.95 been written back into history with such into flame by three expert private tutors- Available at your local bookcare and skill...

...more, he contends, disaster-or at least "Frank, that better be a cigarette in your A principal factor, Carter suggests, has grave distortions of the social and politi- hand and not a Bible...

...American liberals have made a grievous It's hard to feel comfortable with, much error in their flight from religious dialess close to, someone who evidently Don Wycliff logue...

...Around Marx and developed a love for art and a L€guor€, MO 63057-9999 1937, however, according to a sister and keen interest in its potential to influence her children familiar with the diary's con- society...

...0 line drawings that echo Picasso's forms and Chagall'5 sense of space and flight...

...Catholics are, after all, themselves into majorities, is precisely tice in the United States...

...heirs to a tradition of social teaching and where religion belongs...

...of a religious institution that is University, approaches this subject from writes: "In our sensible zeal to keep relihopelessly backward, unforgivably re- the perspectives of a religiously commit- gion from dominating our politics, we have pressive, and (in the most extreme for- created a political and legal culture that mulations) fundamentally un-American...

...Makes a wonderful gift for cist political partner for more than twen- Born into a wealthy, cultured Venetian Christmas or any time...

...She embraced what the authors Commonweal 8 October 1993: 23...

...There is an unsettling naivete what liberalism ought to denote...

...A reader may solely because the legislators who ap- fairly wonder: Are we talking Invasion of proved it had religious motivations...

...would have to be struck down if that Underlying all this is something very written and illustrated standard were applied to every provi- basic: the contest for power...

...holds in contempt the thing that one val- He also comes to this subject with a repues most...

...mand, anyone...

...hands of her lover and Fas- not have been written...

...The author IL DUCE'S OTHER WOMAN tents, Mussolini erased, inked over, or contends that `Surely the time Philip V. Cannistraro and Brian R. ripped out all the entries about Sarfatti, lest has come for good guardian Sullivan his liaison with her-a woman and a angels to contribute to William Morrow & Co., $25, 685 pp...

...been judicial readings that have contort22: 8 October 1993 Commonweal ed the establishment clause of the First tachment to religion and belief in God...

...And that participants in the public debate ought and soul-searching in high places on the Catholics of whatever political stripe re- to be evaluated...

...offers the young Few women have been re- of the letters she and Mussolini exchanged and young-at-heart positive moved from history so de- over a fifteen-year period...

...BELIEVE IN ANGELS...

...looking inside...

...Churches, by Marsha Sinetar sion...

...utation as an honest, independent thinker, This estrangement has been especially cal orders-is as likely to result from seg- one who is unwilling simply to genuflect acute and painful to Catholic liberals, regating religion from politics as from before the liberal tabernacle but insists on many of whom supposed they had broken inviting it in...

...Thus, it has become possible for front-page stories on the inroads being judges to overturn legislation that was fully made by the Rev...

...within the authority of a legislature to enact Coalition in local elections...

...Jew-and the extent of her influence on positive child-rearing:" him and on Fascist politics be a matter of Publisher's Weekly Karen Sue Smith record...

...Stephen L. Carter, effectively and illegit- The evidence of that is everywhereimately rules "God-talk" out of bounds in in things as small and absurd as a televidiscussions of politics and public poli- sion commentator's wondering aloud cy...

...ty years, Benito Mussolini...

...What our culture The Culture of Disbelief is not an unsocial action that embodies all the best of must begin to appreciate is that it is the flawed book...

...on the population as a In other words, far from being a threat whole...

...822 kept a diary in the vain hope of painting eventually became members of parliahis own portrait for posterity...

...But if it gets But secular liberals have grown pro- nance, that matters...

...ularism...

...Pat Robertson's Christian a joyful and true story about good angels...

...presses the religiously faithful to be other As they have calcified ideologically, sec- than themselves, to act publicly, and ular liberals also have attempted to impose sometimes privately as well, as though a legal and cultural regime that, says their faith does not matter to them...

...issue of how our political society treats main, in their view, Catholics, members Carter, a professor of law at Yale religion and religious people...

...Without the let- ideas, images, and hope for our liberately or cunningly as was ters, which Cannistraro and Sullivan often cynical, threatening, and Margherita Sarfatti at the tracked down, this chilling chronicle could disbelieving times...

...How the Body Snatchers here or democratic pol- WHY CAN'T GROWNUPS much of our voluminous legal codes itics...

...HIS BETTER HALF Around the author's autobiographical childhood story are text brackets that teach parents why and how to give children the safety (and reality) of angels...

...BOOKS The faith that dare not speak its name t should be news to no one that re- THE CULTURE OF DISBELIEF ted person-he is an Episcopalian and he ligious people of liberal political How American Law and Politics and his wife send their two children to a bent have found it increasingly dif- Trivialize Religious Devotion private, religious school-and of a politficult in recent years to maintain Stephen L. Carter ical liberal who nevertheless believes that solidarity with secular liberals...

...one of whom directed the Venice store or charge your order tollDuring most of his adult life, Mussolini Biennale art exhibit and all of whom free 800-325-9521, ext...

...Sarfatti was ment...

...persuasiveness of an idea, not its prove- in many of its propositions...

...What Mussolini did not realize was At the deepest level, WHY that Sarfatti guarded her own place in his- CAN'T GROWNUPS BELIEVE tory and kept, as proof of it, some 1,200 IN ANGELS...

...to our democratic process, the existence This fear of having an alien morality im- and involvement of the churches in the pub- "5inetar's prose style will posed seems to be about as powerful among lic square is essential to its operation in a satisfy both children and adults, as will her whimsical the American people as their powerful at- regime of limited government...

...Basic Books, $25, 320 pp...

...to the extent the churches are their morality" on others-as if any mean- diminished, the state's power and the abilingful law does not impose someone's ity of those who control it to pursue their notion of moral behavior (abortion on de- agendas are enhanced...

...Carter observes, are sources of authority Another noteworthy factor is the very and power independent of the state...

...that the religious voice is required to stay Several things have contributed to the out of the public square only when it is creation of this antireligious culture, but pressed in a conservative cause...

...Along with the classics and mod- TRIUMPH T11 BOOKS mentioned often in it and some pages ap- ern writers, she read Ruskin, Shaw, and box 822 peared to be in her handwriting...

...To the odd but incessantly repeated notion that extent that they flourish, the state's power no individual or group ought to "impose is limited...

...neck, to things as large and awesome as Carter's view is that there is more than the FBI siege and the conflagration at the a little bit of hypocrisy involved in this, Waco compound of the Branch Davidians since "there is much depressing evidence last spring...

...What's a couple are especially worth mentioning...

...Carter (dupes...