One reason that Christian theology is so detached from larger intellectual or artistic movements is that it has not suffered consciously a crisis of … - Mark D. Jordan

In December 1976, the Dade County Metro Commission passed unanimously on first reading an ordinance banning discrimination on the basis of "affectional or sexual preference" in employment and housing. The commissioner proposing the ordinance was Ruth Shack, wife of one of Anita Bryant's booking agents. Indeed, Anita had recorded radio spots for Ruth's election campaign. After the resolution passed, a local attorney, Robert Brake, decided that because the nondiscrimination ordinance contained no religious exemptions, it would force local churches and their schools to hire avowed homosexuals. The fear from the first was about gay men, though television reporters would later explain, with the pedantry of new learning, that "by 'homosexual' we are referring to both men and women." Already an advocate for conservative causes, Brake began to use political and church networks to organize a petition drive that would force a popular referendum on the ordinance. It was no longer enough to declare religious space exempt from civil rights regulations. Religious values had to be proclaimed to the world- and imposed on it in the name of religious exemption.

Porphyry is right to suggest that Plotinus' teaching "voice" has about it something particular (idios), speaking as if inspired and from his own experience rather than out of the tradition. The rhetorical character of the "voice" is precisely that of an autobiographical urgency in the attainment of the One: "Attempt to lead the god in you back to the godhead in the all."

Aristippus is credited with having said that those who stop short of philosophy in the preparatory studies are like Penelope's suitors: they marry the maids, but not the mistress.