Today, in growing numbers, from kitchen tables to nonprofit organizations to corporate boards, Americans are turning away from the bickering and division of politics as usual and turning toward a new politics-what activist-turned-attorney Mark Satin christens here as "radical middle" politics.Instead of the usual blame games, the radical middle appreciates the genuine and often very reasonable concerns of the left and right, which many of those disillusioned with political partisanship will find refreshing. As the nation heads into the 2004 presidential election, the radical middle dares to propose bold and innovative solutions to problems that affect us all, from health care reform to corporate accountability to the fight against terrorism.Radical Middle offers an innovative yet practical handbook that addresses many of the most vexing social problems of our time. A whole new movement is on the march-the radical middle movement-and this is its manifesto. It shows how to understand politics, how to quiet the din of overheated rhetoric, and how to make modern politics reflect the true expression of rational and creative people everywhere.

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This book doesn’t endorse any systematic theology; rather, it’s about how we theologize. Why do two equally trained theologians, studying the same book and loving the same Lord, arrive at such different conclusions? This theological disagreement, at times becoming personal, spills over from the academia to seminaries and churches. And if history is any indicator, this always weakens the unity of the church. Who needs unity when correct doctrines are at stake, right? But, is the defense of all doctrines worth foregoing the unity of the church, despite Jesus’ prayer that “they may be one even as we are one”? At bottom, our theological contentiousness stems from not recognizing that the way biblical revelation is framed is not designed to be handled the way seminaries typically do. Regardless, we strive for the rightness of our tidy theology, even disowning those who disagree while doing so. The disavowal of continuationists by the Strange Fire crowd is the most recent instance in a long line of placing doctrinal purity over the unity of the body. This book uncovers how Scripture is really structured and how, therefore, we need to theologize differently so that we may grow spiritually in Word and Spirit.

Updated with a new introduction, this fifteenth anniversary edition of A Return to Modesty reignites Wendy Shalit’s controversial claim that we have lost our respect for an essential virtue: modesty. When A Return to Modesty was first published in 1999, its argument launched a worldwide discussion about the possibility of innocence and romantic idealism. Wendy Shalit was the first to systematically critique the "hook-up" scene and outline the harms of making sexuality so public. Today, with social media increasingly blurring the line between public and private life, and with child exploitation on the rise, the concept of modesty is more relevant than ever. Updated with a new preface that addresses the unique problems facing society now, A Return to Modesty shows why "the lost virtue" of modesty is not a hang-up that we should set out to cure, but rather a wonderful instinct to be celebrated. A Return to Modesty is a deeply personal account as well as a fascinating intellectual exploration into everything from seventeenth-century manners to the 1948 tune "Baby, It’s Cold Outside." Beholden neither to social conservatives nor to feminists, Shalit reminds us that modesty is not prudery, but a natural instinct—and one that may be able to save us from ourselves.

America has a long tradition of middle-class radicalism, albeit one that intellectual orthodoxy has tended to obscure. The Radical Middle Class seeks to uncover the democratic, populist, and even anticapitalist legacy of the middle class. By examining in particular the independent small business sector or petite bourgeoisie, using Progressive Era Portland, Oregon, as a case study, Robert Johnston shows that class still matters in America. But it matters only if the politics and culture of the leading player in affairs of class, the middle class, is dramatically reconceived. This book is a powerful combination of intellectual, business, labor, medical, and, above all, political history. Its author also humanizes the middle class by describing the lives of four small business owners: Harry Lane, Will Daly, William U'Ren, and Lora Little. Lane was Portland's reform mayor before becoming one of only six senators to vote against U.S. entry into World War I. Daly was Oregon's most prominent labor leader and a onetime Socialist. U'Ren was the national architect of the direct democracy movement. Little was a leading antivaccinationist. The Radical Middle Class further explores the Portland Ku Klux Klan and concludes with a national overview of the American middle class from the Progressive Era to the present. With its engaging narrative, conceptual richness, and daring argumentation, it will be welcomed by all who understand that reexamining the middle class can yield not only better scholarship but firmer grounds for democratic hope.

In his bestselling work of “comic sociology,” David Brooks coins a new word, Bobo, to describe today’s upper class—those who have wed the bourgeois world of capitalist enterprise to the hippie values of the bohemian counterculture. Their hybrid lifestyle is the atmosphere we breathe, and in this witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age, Brooks has defined a new generation. Do you believe that spending $15,000 on a media center is vulgar, but that spending $15,000 on a slate shower stall is a sign that you are at one with the Zenlike rhythms of nature? Do you work for one of those visionary software companies where people come to work wearing hiking boots and glacier glasses, as if a wall of ice were about to come sliding through the parking lot? If so, you might be a Bobo.

Assembles a variety of studies on women's role in modern US radical and non-mainstream political movements, including labor, environmental, and racial. Some are first-person accounts reflecting on the personal dimensions of political commitment; other are scholarly examinations based on interviews and document analysis. Many focus on a particular incident or time period. Six of the 15 essays have been previously published. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR