“... it with all that is in us! And may God defend the right!’ As the congregation sings ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, the RAF is glimpsed through the ruined church roof, flying out to do battle. Maxtone Graham claims that FDR was so stirred by the film’s closing sermon that he requested it be dropped over occupied Europe as a leaflet and broadcast to the ...”

“... against the weak and helpless, and an enemy to tyrannical movements, whether Communist, Fascist or Christian fundamentalist. It took her 50 years to turn the events of 1927, on which she took copious and passionate notes, into a jumbled, emotional piece, ‘The Never-Ending Wrong’, published in 1977, and as much about memory’s slipperiness as about what ...”

“... by different cultures – but treats the dead primarily as a philosophical problem, following Christian thinkers from Boethius to Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus as they wrestle with the form/matter opposition inherited from Aristotle and riddle out where to place Christ’s body in such a scheme. Whether or not the corpse is a nonperson, it resembles a ...”

“... non-existent) early 17th-century brotherhood. A German work of 1616, The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, often linked to the Rosicrucians, was a romantic allegory swirling with symbols of purification and transformation. Alchemists aimed to extract purity from nature’s corruption, clarity from confusion, and called the refinement of chemical ...”

“... that the Bundeswehr contingent in Afghanistan was protecting German commercial interests; and Christian Wulff, the former Christian Democrat chief in Lower Saxony, over a questionable loan for his house from a friendly businessman. Two leading ministers, one of defence, the other of education, had to go when they were ...”

“... was still Latin, and it was in Latin that he spoke to his congregation. Not all the population was Christian: there were also adherents of the Arian heresy and even pagans who still worshipped Jupiter.St Caesarius condemned a provision of Roman law, still practised at the time, which allowed a young man to keep, before his marriage, concubines whom he would ...”

“... women could be seen in the throng and a small group of them stood just beyond it. ‘Welcome, Christian people,’ the first speaker shouted, addressing those women. The government claims the uprising is sectarian, a view its supporters are keen to disprove. ‘One, one, the Syrian people are one,’ the crowd chanted and the speaker roared: ‘This is ...”

“... to his official biography, it was his initial success in gathering followers that led jealous Christian rivals to denounce him to the new Communist authorities, leading to further imprisonment and torture in a ‘re-education’ camp. Moon was certainly interned for a year but Korean Christian researchers claim to have ...”

“... next stanza, as Marvell deploys with self-conscious confidence the obvious dualism of traditional Christian belief: Here at the fountain’s sliding foot, Or at some fruit-tree’s mossy root, Casting the body’s vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide: There like a bird it sits, and sings, Then whets, and combs its silver wings; And, till prepared ...”

“... for ‘once again in their history the Jews are victims, sacrifices.’ At one level this has the ring of terrible, disquieting truth. But a sacral tone easily follows. Here is Emil Fackenheim, at a conference in Jerusalem in 1970: ‘A Jew knows about memory and uniqueness. He knows that the unique crime of the Nazi Holocaust must never be forgotten ...”

“... of the country – the PSI opted for a common Socialist-Communist list with the PCI, against the Christian-Democratic Party backed by the Vatican and the CIA. Timpanaro was among the socialist youth who opposed this decision, regarding the PCI leadership as little better than a lay version of the Holy Office, and in despair wrote a parody of the PSI Congress ...”

“... dramatic way. To the end of his days, he had no idea who his father was. Erikson’s name may now ring a bell for very few people, and even they may be surprised to realise that he died only a few years ago. He had by then had a long, long life; his period of renown as psychologist, author and sage could be said to have begun in the mid-1950s, when his book ...”

“... old days. Erasmus was a keen observer who dispels illusions. This humanist dawn was no period of Christian love, of sweetly singing choirs (Erasmus loathed English Church music, anyway), or of healthy green lands in an ecologist’s dream. In his efforts to spread a scholarly Gospel, Erasmus met hostility and underwent much suffering. The Latin ...”

“... The words too whosesoever. What room for worse! How almost true they sometimes almost ring! How wanting in inanity! Say the night is young alas and take heart. Or better worse say still a watch of night alas to come. A rest of last watch to come. And take heart. It would be a great pity if, nowadays, Beckett had become more celebrated than ...”

“... met regularly to discuss his progress. A ‘pastor’ from SPAC Nation, an evangelical Christian church that runs programmes to draw adolescents away from crime and violence, gave him a place in a house the church owns in the suburbs of south-east London. Thapar has misgivings about SPAC Nation – it has been accused of financially exploiting its ...”