The Cube and the Cathedral
Well, we received our copy of Weigel's The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God yesterday. It's a punchy, easy-to-read job, only 177 pages of text, of which we read 60 in less than an hour. It's meant for a popular audience and doesn't delve into heavy analysis, which is probably a good thing, but to be honest, we're a little disappointed so far.
When we came to the chapter entitled "Something New: The Drama of Atheistic Humanism," we thought, "All right! A little de Lubac. Now we're gonna rock!" We didn't. He recited 500 words about de Lubac and then spent about 2,000 words making a few points from de Lubac's excellent The Drama of Atheistic Humanism, points that don't do the book justice.
We realize, however, that our assessment of Weigel's treatment of The Drama may not be fair. Weigel is writing for a general audience, and Eric Scheske reveres de Lubac's study, having read it carefully after finding it at Notre Dame's undergraduate library and copying it on a Xerox. (Yes, we realize we probably violated copyright laws, but the book was out-of-print and we couldn't find it in used book shops. Ignatius Press, by the way, has printed a new edition of the book since.)
Anyway, we don't have time to cull passages from de Lubac's book right now, but look for a few this weekend. We may even toss them onto the "Our Favorite Quotes" page. We'll let you know either way.
The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God
