Cloudy outlook  A retired bishop's homespun, middlebrow wisdom
frustrates Terry Eagleton  Some years ago, an Anglican bishop
was asked on television how he would deal with a young couple
who were having sex outside marriage. "Well, I wouldn't want to
condemn them," he said. "Instead, I'd like to get alongside
them." It is a wonderful self-parody of Anglican attitudes:
gentle, unworldly, non-doctrinaire, comic in its earnest high-
mindedness. One takes it the bishop would be rather more ready
to condemn the torturers of Abu Ghraib. Or would he climb into
bed with them too?    1. Between the Monster and the Saint:
Reflections on the Human Condition   2. by Richard Holloway
Richard Holloway, former bishop of Edinburgh, is acutely aware
of human cruelty and corruption. Between the Monster and the
Saint contains a description of 18th-century torture that
tender-minded readers may prefer to skip. Holloway is that rare
kind of liberal, one conscious of the blind forces that limit
our freedom and secretly mould our d