Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!

Reunion on the Far Shore

From the February 2022 Print Edition

Heaven,” Jonathan Edwards says in the fifteenth and last of his Charity Sermons, “is a World of Love.” In saying this, however, he did not seem to have in mind what many of us might -immediately hope for or suppose. To be sure, in one of his Miscellanies, asking himself “whether the . . . . Continue Reading »

Reading Lewis

From the November 2021 Print Edition

The subtitle of this book characterizes it as a “guide” to The Abolition of Man. Potential readers might, therefore, ask themselves: What does Michael Ward mean in calling his book a “guide”? And why should a guide be needed for a book that (with rather large print) runs to only a . . . . Continue Reading »

Vaccines and Fetal Tissue

From the March 2021 Print Edition

In 1975 Paul Ramsey published a little book titled The Ethics of Fetal Research. In it he was at pains to distinguish experimental use of the dead fetus or of cadaver fetal tissue from research on the still living fetus (whether newly aborted or still in the womb but intended for abortion). . . . . Continue Reading »

I’ll Have Consequences

From the December 2018 Print Edition

Not too many years ago, I knew a little boy who was prone to temper tantrums that included yelling, kicking, and hitting. He wasn’t entirely to blame for this, having had a rough start in life. Nevertheless, that sort of behavior couldn’t just be excused, and, of course, if uncorrected it would . . . . Continue Reading »

Fences and Neighbors

From the Aug/Sept 2018 Print Edition

In his famous speech (in Acts 17) to “men of Athens” at the ­Areopagus, St. Paul speaks of the providential ordering of God as including different nations, each having its particular boundaries. God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having . . . . Continue Reading »