On View: Door with Ivy, Photograph by Lynn Park, San Francisco, California. For more information about the photography of Lynn Park, contact the Art Editor.
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg,” Jefferson could write in 1781. A century earlier, such individualism was unthinkable to most Europeans. Indulging heresy, as Benjamin Kaplan points out in his new history of religious tolerance, threatened not only to pick their pockets but also to endanger their souls.
For several years, Shakespeare scholars have speculated on whether William Shakespeare had been a closeted Catholic. The Rev. David Beauregard, a Roman Catholic priest who teaches Shakespeare at the seminary of St. Clement Eucharistic Shrine in Boston, has published a new book that makes the case that Shakespeare was indeed Catholic.
Faith is more than beliefs. It is about right and wrong, justice and injustice — about remaking the world. “Faith in Action” is a new blog that tracks the activities of people of faith across the globe and across religious traditions. It maps their engagement around critical issues, from global health to the environment — from AIDS to zebras.
The December 2, 2007 New York Times Sunday Book Review will feature its lists of the editors’ call on the 100 most notable books of the year. While the print version of the list is a week away, the list is now available online, and a remarkably large number of the books have religious themes.
O Lord; O King, resplendent on the citadel of heaven,
all hail continually;
and of your clemency
upon your people still have mercy.
Lord, whom the hosts of cherubim in songs and hymns
with praise continually proclaim,
upon us eternally have mercy.