THE RIGHT BOOKS

In his brilliant The Ordeal of Civility, John Murray Cuddihy argued that the essence of modernity lies in distinctions, differentiations, separations. As we proceed further, however, into what John Lukacs has defined as post-modernity, we see, everywhere, the erosion of these divisions. This process, which has been for many years apparent in politics and economics, has since the 1950s effected an evolutionary trend in the arts and, since the 1960s, in religion as well, to the point where men of all faiths are coming to sound increasingly like converts to Unitarianism-Universalism. At the top, that is, of the respective churchly pyramids —certainly not in the lower echelons, if we are to believe James L. Tyson, author of Prophets or Useful Idiots: Church Organizations Attacking U.S. Central American Policy (Center for Public Diplomacy Studies, The Council for the Defense of Freedom, 1275 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016; $6.50). As the various American denominations, in their highest councils, appear to have abandoned a commitment to historical theologies, the better to concern themselves with what Tyson calls “the progress of human beings in this life,” the laity shows signs of restiveness.

Since the 1970s, senators, congressmen, and members of successive presidential Administrations have been made acutely aware of the hostility of American church groups to even the most vaguely assertive foreign-policy feints, in particular those aimed at ameliorating the continuing crisis in Latin America. Many of the churchmen most prominent in this regard do not discourage the application of the term “prophet” and “prophetic” to themselves and their activities; though, as Tyson reminds us,

In his brilliant The Ordeal of Civility, John Murray Cuddihy argued that the essence of modernity lies in distinctions, differentiations, separations. As we proceed further, however, into what John Lukacs has defined as post-modernity, we see, everywhere, the erosion of these divisions. This process, which has been for many years apparent in politics and economics, has since the 1950s effected an evolutionary trend in the arts and, since the 1960s, in religion as well, to the point where men of all faiths are coming to sound increasingly like converts to Unitarianism-Universalism. At the top, that is, of the respective churchly pyramids —certainly not in the lower echelons, if we are to believe James L. Tyson, author of Prophets or Useful Idiots: Church Organizations Attacking U.S. Central American Policy (Center for Public Diplomacy Studies, The Council for the Defense of Freedom, 1275 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016; $6.50). As the various American denominations, in their highest councils, appear to have abandoned a commitment to historical theologies, the better to concern themselves with what Tyson calls “the progress of human beings in this life,” the laity shows signs of restiveness.

Since the 1970s, senators, congressmen, and members of successive presidential Administrations have been made acutely aware of the hostility of American church groups to even the most vaguely assertive foreign-policy feints, in particular those aimed at ameliorating the continuing crisis in Latin America. Many of the churchmen most prominent in this regard do not discourage the application of the term “prophet” and “prophetic” to themselves and their activities; though, as Tyson reminds us,