Word: milhaven
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Despite Auschwitz, the Gulag Archipelago, Cambodia and Jonestown, we are being told once again that evil does not exist [Dec. 18]. Good grief! What would have to happen for Milhaven and Baum to accept the existence of evil? Having eliminated evil from the world, perhaps they would be so kind as to rid us of poverty, disease, pain and war as well. Robert H. Stein White Bear Lake, Minn...
...Catholics and Evangelical Protestants still talk of individual evil, original sin, even of the devil and demons-and did so in the wake of what happened in the jungles of Guyana. But these concepts have not exactly been popular among more liberal theologians. Brown University's John Giles Milhaven, for example, refuses to attach the label "evil" even to Jonestown. "I think what really happens with people like Hitler and Jones," says he, "is simple psychological sickness. The only response [to Guyana], it seems to me, is pity for everybody involved, not moral horror. Psychological illnesses that keep people...
...University of Toronto's Gregory Baum, like Milhaven a former Catholic priest, agrees. The enormity of the Rev. Jim Jones' deed, he maintains, in no way discredits the liberal emphasis on social and institutional evil as opposed to individual sin. Yale's Margaret Farley also defends the modern de-emphasis on personal evil. "One of the advantages of looking to social evil is that you don't neutralize evil at all, but you don't become paranoid about it either...
Divine Design. In particular, some Catholic theologians who favor birth control have questioned the traditional view that "nature" requires each sexual act to be open to procreation. But, argues John Giles Milhaven of Brown University, having rejected natural law in order to permit contraception, the theologians have undermined its moral force as a barrier to nonmarital sex. Milhaven himself believes that, instead of laying down dogmatic rules, the church should use the behavioral sciences, particularly psychology, as a guide in counseling individuals with sexual conflicts. Generally, he finds far more reason to condemn adultery than premarital sex. A more cautious...
| 1 |