Volume 53

Guests on Volume 53: Lawrence Adams, on the possibilities of religious pluralism in Islamic views of state and society; Dana Gioia, on the craft, popularity, and significance of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Elmer M. Colyer, on theologian Thomas F. Torrance's understanding of the Incarnation; R. A. Herrera, on how the Christian view of Creation and Incarnation shapes an understanding of history; Margaret Visser, on learning to recognize the deep meaning in the design of Christian churches; and Joseph Pearce, on Tolkien's other writings and on his view of myth and story.   "Reform tends to be something that brings Islam back to its roots, and creates a movement that's even more antithetical to Western society in its secular form, as we know it now. It's often been said--going back to the issue of tolerance--that Islam in its early centuries was very tolerant. You often hear it said it was more tolerant than the Christianity of the time was. But what it was tolerant of was a Medieval and A