R. R. Reno

We’re in the middle of our Fall fundraising campaign, a new effort to raise funds for the mission and work of the First Things website. I hope you will step forward to be counted among those who give. The First Things website does many things. We provide one and often two (and sometimes even . . . . Continue Reading »

Today we’re launching a new effort to raise funds for the mission and work of the First Things website, our Fall fundraising campaign. I hope you will step forward to be counted among those who give. The First Things website does many things. We provide one and often two (and sometimes even . . . . Continue Reading »

Rosh Hashanah began last Thursday evening. For Jews, this two-day holiday celebrates the beginning of a new year, evoking the creation of the world and the dawn of time. It is a holiday of new beginnings, and for this reason fittingly opens ten Days of Awe or High Holy Days, a season of repentance that allows one to make a new beginning in the eyes of God… . Continue Reading »

Attention First Things readers. The Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. is sponsor a Theological Symposium on marriage on Friday and Saturday, October 21-22. The speakers are excellent: Reinhard Huetter from Duke, Fr. Michael Sherwin from the Dominican faculty at Fribourg in Switzerland, . . . . Continue Reading »

Proponents of same-sex marriage frame their cause in terms of civil rights. There are no significant moral or cultural differences between homosexual couples and heterosexual couples, they presume, and therefore limiting marriage to heterosexual couples amounts to discrimination. Fairness and . . . . Continue Reading »

Two large, sunken pools, fed by what the official literature describes as the largest man-made waterfall in North America, drain into central shafts meant, it seems, to conjure the infinite abyss of death and loss. They are rimmed with bronze panels into which are inscribed the names of those who died a decade ago. The rest of the grounds of the 9/11 Memorial are filled with trees and stone benches. … Continue Reading »

How do you spell tendentious? Sociologists Robert Putnam and David Campbell on religion and politics. Without evidence they assert that the Tea Party is controversial not because of its strident fiscal conservatism, but rather because Tea Party activists are religious. In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, the duo held forth on the nature, influence, and significance of the Tea Party, which they say has become a toxic brand… . Continue Reading »

Sunday’s New York Times ran an op ed by Warren Buffet, ” Stop Coddling the Super-Rich ,” in which The Oracle of Omaha chided our legislators for failing to tax the rich at sufficiently high rates. He points out that he paid nearly than $7,000,000 in taxes last year. Sounds like a . . . . Continue Reading »

The brinksmanship in Washington over the federal debt ceiling caused me to think about our current difficulties. By and large liberals see in the present crisis images of dolorous unemployment lines and want more government spending; conservatives see a bankrupt banana republic and want cuts in spending. Whose vision is clearest? The liberals have history on their side… . Continue Reading »

Has American liberalism lost its capacity to govern? I’m afraid so. Liberals can still win elections and propose realistic policies. But as a culture, liberalism has become insular and narrow-minded. It lacks the capacity for the generous appreciation of other points of view needed in a . . . . Continue Reading »