Archive
More than thirty years of First Things articles at your fingertips.
Articles
Preying on Freshmen vs. Praying for Freshmen
More years ago than I care to admit, my parents drove me the three hours to my undergraduate institution, pulling up to the dorm to unpack my belongings as...
Why the Lord’s Prayer Still Matters
This past week I participated in Acton University, which is an annual conference in Michigan that celebrates religious and economic liberty and seeks to develop sustainable poverty relief. We were...
This Time Narnia is a City
Every town of any size in America seems to have a road called “College Street”; often there is no longer an institution there, but one was planned or one...
Married at 25: Too Young or Too Old?
Charles Murray has an interesting piece at the Wall Street Journal, outlining his five rules for living a happy life. The first recommendation grabbed my attention: “consider marrying young.”...
House of Cards and the Death of Principle
I come from a family that is neck-deep in preachers, politicians, and lady wrestlers, which in my home state of Mississippi are basically three sides of the same coin....
Tolkien, Lewis, Disney? The Greatest Pre-Evangelists of Our Age
This past weekend my family joined scores of others in attending a screening of Frozen, Disney’s latest “princess” movie. The story is a substantial reworking of Hans Christian Andersen’s...
William Faulkner’s Peculiar Calvinism: As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner’s novels are notoriously difficult to adapt into films. Even with techniques such as flashbacks and advanced editing, Faulkner’s stream of consciousness narratives, especially the masterpiece exempla of...
William Alexander Percy and the Demise of Southern Christianity
From what I have seen on my Facebook feed, pretty much any blog or story about how to deal with the demise of “the church” in “this generation” is...
Gregory A. Thornbury’s Mission to Revive Carl F. H. Henry
Gregory A. Thornbury, the recently-announced incoming president of the King’s College, has a great task ahead of him. The institution he will lead announces that its mission is to...
The Great Gatsby’s Gospels
I spent a year of my life living as Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby , after I had answered a simple newspaper ad: “Waterfront 1BR Cottage....
Is Black Sabbath a “Christian” Band?
I should, perhaps, not admit to the following in print, but here goes. When I was in fifth grade, in 1973, I bought my first record, taking my dollar to...
Cartography and the Vatican
I love maps. Adore them. I grew up with those crazy folding road maps and now I refuse to download certain map apps for my smartphone because I am...
A Sitcom for the STEM Age
When I was a teenager, our family suffered from the embarrassment of not having cable television. We had only five channels to watch, and my brother and I were...
They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Lack of Irony
James Poniewozik has an interesting review in Time of the recent Oscar show, looking at the way Seth MacFarlane acquitted himself in his hosting duties. Poniewozik viewed MacFarlane as...
Divine Sheet Music
Beck Hansen. Stage name: just “Beck”. Avant-garde musician Beck Hansen recently produced a new “album,” Song Reader , that was not released in stores or via mp3 files. Instead,...
