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spiritual perspective on tv
The Way We Live Now
CREDIT BBC and PBS with good timing. Masterpiece Theater's recent miniseries The Way We Live Now, based on an 1875 Anthony Trollope novel, has had many viewers fast-forwarding to more recent examples of greed, deception, and betrayal.
The story's "great Mexican railway venture" walks and talks like Enron's creative accounting schemes. Trollope's dark-force character, Augustus Melmotte, today might be a collapsed dotcom adventurer or a rogue or Ponzi schemer (if he or she could muster the bravado and intrigue of a Melmotte). And there's that new-old equation—money+politics=power. During his campaign for Parliament, Melmotte tells the electors of Westminster, "You need a man who understands the way we live now. . . . public confidence is the essence in these things." "These things" being empty promises of quick, work-free wealth.
But greed and betrayed trust weren't exactly 19th-century inventions. They appear to be intrinsic to the human condition. Such is the conventional wisdom on human nature, anyway—today and in 1875. But that was also, in no small coincidence, the year in which Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures was published. To explain the connection between two dissimilar books, it may help connect some painterly dots.
Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.
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April 29, 2002 issue
View Issue-
The renewal of trust
Doretha Kitty Simms
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YOUR LETTERS
with contributions from Ellie Peacock, Duane Burghard, Christine Hartzell, Shirley January
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Items of interest
with contributions from Dennis Fiely, Kim Horner
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Can trust in God be restored?
By Lois Rae Carlson
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What to trust when your trust is tested
By Barbara M. Vining
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A spiritual approach to conflict mediation
Warren Bolon with contributions from Arthur B. Gingold
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Taming the wild 'what-ifs'
Name removed by request
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Maria of Cartegena
By Shelly Richardson
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Honoring the God that loves both sides in the Middle East
By Chris Raymond
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From depression and anger to incredible LOVE
By Jennifer Pellegrini
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'I thanked God for His timing'
By Martina Peltzer
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The Way We Live Now
By Warren Bolon Sentinel staff
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---- 100 years ago
with contributions from James Martineau, W. A. Nichols
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Prostate problems are not inevitable
Thomas Clark Tufts
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Business trusted to God
Mario Alberto García
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Healed overnight
Jeremy Carper
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Filling the gaps
Dave Hohle