This essay is an historical approach to the thesis that present changes in Hungary are, despite all appearances, parts and results of a long process. Western liberal democracies have served as models for various Hungarian political movments and social classes for some two centuries, and political changes similar to contemporary ones have occurred repeatedly in Hungary. An important feature of Hungarian political and civil attitudes is that these changes usually take the shape of "lawful revolutions." Most political, legal, and social conditions needed to complete the transition from a communist system to a free and democratic Hungary are now present. However, the process is endangered by a tremendous national debt and national conflicts in the region.

The social mentality of the Poles in the early 1990s reflects a fusion of Solidarity's heritage, understood in a broader, historical perspective, and the communist legacy of the last forty-five years which consists of five principal elements: the new work ethos; acceptance of a protective character of the state; changes in morality; lack of full acceptance of a free market economy; and adaptation of certain communist doctrines of social equality. The contradictions between these new features and historically-grounded, traditional Polish values manifest themselves in a basic conflict between the communist legacy still present in social mentality that expects the benefits offered by the former socialist system, and capitalist aspirations of Poles toward a new, higher, Western standard of living. From the perspective of the Polish historical, cultural, and religious heritage, a Christian political economy appears most suitable for overcoming the country's negative legacy.

Communism was imposed in Nicaragua in stages, just as in Eastern Europe. Unlike Eastern Europe, however, communism was never consolidated in Nicaragua. Like their East European analogues, the Sandinistas stripped the state of valuable assets before turning the presidency over to the winner of the 1990 election. The Sandinistas outdid their East European counterparts in retaining greater control of the police and military under the new government. The thesis of this essay is that Nicaragua is unique among post-communist polities in that it voted communism out before it had consolidated itself and while a civil war still raged. These two conditions will probably make it more difficult to solidify democracy in Nicaragua than in Eastern Europe.

Contemporary natural science is returning to the question of First Principles concerning the origin, nature, and destiny of man and the universe, while the social sciences bracket man and the question of values, and theologians largely concede factual pronouncements about the world to scientists. This essay proposes that man himself is the missing link between science and religion, nature and spirit. And that the main challenge for science and religion today is to find a common, intersubjectively transmissible language which could bridge the conceptual gap between these two fields of inquiry, A genuine science-theology dialogue would have to "unbracket" man and encompass the totality of human experience via a global approach to all knowing seeking to rediscover the interconnectedness and complementarity between facts and values, knowledge and faith, science and religion.

Culminating a process that began with modernity, Americans now face a breakdown in society's moral consensus. Questions of an ethical nature long thought settled have risen to usurp the Western tradition of moral continence. This tradition is firmly anchored in the Judeo-Christian virtues brought to America and cultivated during the Colonial period. These virtues reflected a Christian authority internalized in conscience and practiced in community. But this authority came under assault with modernity's creeping secularization. One reason for this is the rise and pervasiveness of secular social theories that have concluded in a socializing theodicy.

Frank Lloyd Wright is widely recognized as one of America's most creative architects. His influence continues around the world. Since Wright's death in 1959, his impact on architecture and social reform has remained an important topic for historians. Wright's genius has been attributed to his mentor Louis Sullivan, his father's love of classical music, or his preschool training with Froebel developmental toys. Although these factors may have played a part in Wright's development, his religious beliefs were central to his social theory and Organic Architecture. Wright's life and work was a concerted effort to convert the world to his strong Unitarian religious beliefs.

The civil rights movement has broken away from its religious roots which once provided it firm support and, indeed, it has become a threat to those roots. In fact, the past thirty years evidence two civil rights movements. The original civil rights movement promoted equal opportunity and presupposed a constrained vision of human possibilities compatible with Christianity, The revised civil rights agenda, which had replaced it by 1971, promoted preferential policies dubbed "affirmative action" based on an unconstrained vision incompatible with both Christianity and the American founding. The most visible threat to religious liberty is the expansion of civil rights protections to include homosexuals despite the overwhelming rejection of homosexuality as a lifestyle by the majority of Americans, including Christians.

National and ethnic resurgence has dampened post-Cold War optimism. Predictions of the end of history and democratic universalism confront ideas of a coming clash of civiiizations and a new Cold War between secular and religious nationalisms. At this critical juncture in history, America suffers from leadership fatigue, lacks a coherent vision, and faces significant domestic weaknesses including ethnic, cultural, intellectual, and moral Balkanization. America's global leadership requires a viable and enviable model capable of effectively translating power into legitimate authority. Such a model, in turn, presupposes a moral-spiritual renewal and democratic institutions and practices.

Russia is a strategic research site for studying the deconstruction of idolatries. Idolatry remains a powerful social scientific and popular concept, more so than the modem, unified concept of ideology, Russians themselves have regularly invoked the vocabulary of idolatry. IRIVC public opinion surveys in Moscow, 1990-93, indicate that a majority believe that the Biblical commandments against idolatry are very important for contemporary man and would improve the world if obeyed. To Russians, idolatry means blindty either worshipping anything or believing in leaders. Between April 1990 and April 1991, there was a 183 percent increase in the number of people expressing certainty in the existence of God. Belief in a transcendent God is associated with a dramatic decrease in various idolatries such as obsessive concem with wealth and New Age cults such as astrology, EST, UFOism, and the like.

Liberation theology is in retreat. Once orthodox Catholics, starting with Pope John Paul II, recognized liberation theology's cultural challenge, they effectively countered it. They insisted on a traditional Catholic hierarchy of values. They undercut liberation theology's appeal by taking back key words and precepts that liberationists tried to appropriate. The Magisterium's sensus fidei included practical steps to demonstrate the weakness of liberation theology's hold, especially on poor people. Orthodox Catholics thus used the theological and practical weapons that the Church always had at her disposal. The response of many liberation theologians has been to change some of liberation theology's precepts.

At present, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. In Africa, as elsewhere, militant, fundamentalist Islam is at the heart of this contemporary resurgence. Perhaps the major characteristic of resurgent Islam is its quest to establish states govemed by the Sharia'ah law. There is no sacred/secular dichotomy, and each area of life is taken seriously in terms of Islamisation, With its inherent opposition to the secular privatisation of religion, resurgent Islam presents a challenge to Christians to explore the relationship between their own faith and all areas of life and think through the implications of societal pluralism in an integral Christian way.

This essay explores the impact of alcohol and drug abuse on the individuars life, family, and community in a secularized society. The upsurge of crime in the city is the consequence of many variables, besides drugs and alcohol: lack of education, training, and jobs, the disintegration of the family, and inadequate administration of justice in the midst of a social climate of relativism. There is a need for the reintegration of the family, particularly the re-inclusion of a responsible father as a role model. In order to restore city life, there is an urgent need for a more active religious involvement at all levels, especially for teaching moral values in homes and schools. A new global evangelization of communities would highlight the importance of Judaeo-Christian values for the formation of character, and personal and community responsibility so necessary for a civil society.

Drugs and crime are resounding issues with regard to contemporary cities. As we approach the twenty-first century, their impact on American cities in particular requires attention. The realities of life facing the residents of inner cities today are leading to a future that may resemble in many ways Aldous Huxley's dystopia. Brave New World. Unless a serious national commitment is made to alter present trajectories, the future may well be one in which drugs, crime, and social pathologies, combined with a lack of educational and economic opportunities, relegate many people to the bottom of society, enslaved by soma and casual sexual gratification, eerily reminiscent of Huxley's genetically-engineered society.

This essay explores the relationship between moral community and the principles and practices of liberal individualism. Insofar as these principles afford the widest latitude to the individual's judgment concerning the government of his life, they have contributed to a decay in the rigor and authority of moral and civic codes. Moreover, they and the way of life they foster seem to militate against any political or social solutions to problems of morality and civility, reflecting a disparity between liberal regime principles and the moral preconditions of a decent society. A moral revival may thus have to be founded on the recognition that healthy liberal democracies require policies and practices in tension with liberal principles.

Lewis Mumford's discursive map, uncovering the trajectories of modem consciousness and Western social philosophy, dates back to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and the great tradition of American Romanticism However, Mumford's discursive map of the idea of the city cannot be reduced to architecture and city planning alone. His world of ideas draws on such thinkers and concepts as Ebenezer Howard's Garden City, Benton MacKaye's Eutopian ideas, Patrick Geddes' regional planning, and Frank Lloyd Wright's organic architecture (Broadacre City), anticipated by Louis Henri Sullivan. Mumford's theoretical constructions also reflect the worldviews of Simmel, Tönnies, Spengler, and Toynbee, as well as other influential social theories of the last two centuries, Mumford was apparently the first among twentieth-century intellectuals to grasp that human creation, interaction, self-fulfillment, and the search for perfectibility all take place in the city.

St Augustine's The City of God has deeply influenced the development of Westem political thought. As a seminal thinker, Augustine provides important insights conceming the future of the city. However, Augustine's politics cannot be separated from his theology, particularly his teaching on original sin and predestination. Augustine's understanding of teleology or purpose, especially with respect to ethics, and eschatology---the end or consummation of all things--—form an integrated whole. Hence, to assess Augustine's politics, one must first grasp his theology. Notably, Augustine's theology invests history with meaning and provides a basis for the inevitable pluralism as well as cooperation between the citizens from the two cities living in the same world with diametrically opposed loves.

This essay considers Medjugorje, a small mountain village in Bosma-Hercegovina, as an icon or a bridge between God and man. The contemporary quest for national roots in the Balkans has led to cultural policies in the Yugoslav successor states which deny all common bonds among the South Slavs, resulting in a Kafkaesque civil war. Drawing on the crisis of liberal democracy and community in the West, the essay explores the prospects for peace in the former Yugoslavia, as reflected in Our Lady of Medjugorje's call for moral and spiritual renewal. It concludes that the quintessential, universal. Christian, and ecumenical Medjugorje message of peace represents a bridge to eternity, just as the historic Old Bridge in Mostar and the Višegrad Bridge over the Drina River are symbolic of a common South Slav history and destiny.

The classification, comparison, and evaluation of science-theology relationships is facilitated by employing a high-level abstraction, such as a logic-based typology. The application of formal symbolic logic, fact-related dialectical logic, and the logic of complementarity yields six logical relationship types. Typologies proposed by leading exponents of science-theology interfaces like Barbour, Bube, Drees, Hefner, Miller, Peacocke, and Russell are examined in terms of logical types. Since both science and theology have a role in individual and societal life, the types "overlap" and "complementarity" look particularly promising: the distinctiveness of each domain is recognized, but also their linkages. An analysis of the New Age worldview highlights its deficiencies and suggests an elaboration of more complex logical types as combinations of basic types.