In Memoriam: Robert Louis Wilken
Robert Louis Wilken (1936–2026) passed away on Saturday, June 6, at age eighty-nine. A former chairman of the board of the Institute on Religion and Public Life and lifelong…
June/July 2026
Print Edition
June/July 2026 Print Edition
America’s Most Influential Journal of Religion and Public Life
The Education of Cole Tomas Allen
A Dreadful Humility
At some point we must give up trying to understand other people. Love them, surely. But recognize…
Scout’s Honor
My six-year-old son wants to join the Scouts, but I have mixed feelings. As an Eagle Scout,…
Why I Became Orthodox
Bulbous onion domes topped the Corinthian columns, and baroque stucco architraves lit up the drowsy city toward…
Our Strange Catholic Moment
American Catholicism is in steep decline. In 2000, 2.6 million American children attended Catholic schools. In 2025,…
The Twisted Consequences of Chatbots
The American Covenant’s Answer to AI
Artificial intelligence is testing our commitment to the great moral covenant that binds us together as a…
Worth Beyond Our Works
In the future, everyone will know the grief of Garry Kasparov. The Russian grandmaster was bested by…
The Strength of Jimmy Lai and the Weakness of Emperor Xi
At his May summit in Beijing, President Trump made an effort to convince Chinese leader Xi Jinping…
In Memoriam: Robert Louis Wilken
Robert Louis Wilken (1936–2026) passed away on Saturday, June 6, at age eighty-nine. A former chairman of…
Paul Celan’s Via Negativa
In the twentieth century the messengers shot themselves. Most did so metaphorically, of course, though a few…
Catholics and Modern Anti-Semitism
For certain personalities, drugs such as methamphetamine have an almost irresistible appeal. Only later does it turn…
The Truth About Christian Hospitality
The world has changed and the ground has shifted under us. All that is solid melts into…
Delicious Longing
One day around 1836, in the ancient city of Dijon, the young French poet Aloysius Bertrand was…
Has Freya India Cracked the Commodification Problem?
The myth of Narcissus tells of a beautiful young man’s obsession with his own image, captured in…
Liberalism Is Christianity’s Prodigal Child
Something of a shift in the landscape is signaled when a press like Polity releases, almost simultaneously,…
Birds
I wait for themthis dark spun dawn,kinglet, titmouse, nuthatch, wren,names so sweet on winter’s frozen tongue,such feathered…
Irises
Only he could see them clearly: the wayThey curl their shadows close beneath their leaves, Cupping clefts of…
Tool and Toy
When you select the proper tools to use,favor those that make delightful toys,like whistling tops driven by…
Return of the Strong Gods
A young writer in Australia recently sent me an essay that ended with an arresting sentence: “I…
Civil Religion in America Then and Now
Yesterday, I discussed with my class Robert Bellah’s famous 1967 essay entitled “Civil Religion in America.” In…
The Enduring Irving Kristol
I cannot claim to have known the late Irving Kristol very well. But each encounter was memorable,…
The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism
American evangelicalism is deeply divided. Some evangelicals have embraced the secular turn toward social justice activism, particularly…
The Promise and Limits of Covenant Polity
Liberal order is under siege. Populist and nationalist movements in the U.S. and across Europe challenge the…
America’s Two Foundings
Contrasting judgments often arise from studying the Niagara of words that justified the American War for Independence—together…
