Matthew Milliner

[caption id=”attachment_60786” align=”alignnone” width=”510”] Patriarch Athenagoras & Pope Paul VI (1965) / Patriarch Bartholomew & Pope Francis (2013)[/caption] As if Part 1 wasn’t impressive enough. . . . . Continue Reading »

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Pope Francis . . . . Continue Reading »

One of the surprises of Augustine Thompson’s recent biography of Saint Francis , as illuminated by this Mars Hill Audio interview , is that the “radical” Francis was something of a liturgical purist.  “Francis returned often to the theme of the Eucharist in his . . . . Continue Reading »

“I was glad to have hit the first home run in this park. God only knows who will hit the last,” said Babe Ruth of the old Yankee stadium.  Technically that was José Molina, but I like to think it was Benedict XVI.  While we’re all swapping tales, I saw him in that . . . . Continue Reading »

While we’re making parallels between evangelicals and Catholics , why not do the same for evangelical and Orthodox thought (as represented in First Things )? Here is David Hart on the God helmet (which only subscribers will have had the pleasure of reading). Now, in fact, there really would . . . . Continue Reading »

First Things readers may remember the late Richard John Neuhaus’s critique of N.T. Wright, entitled The Possibilities and Perils in Being a Really Smart Bishop : Most of [Wright’s Surprised by Hope ] is devoted to making the case for a greater accent in Christian piety and liturgy on . . . . Continue Reading »

Many know that when his native France fell to the Nazis, Catholic philosopher and art theorist Jacques Maritain moved to Princeton.  What is less known is the impact he had there.  Conversations with Maritain seem to have re-invigorated the dormant faith of the unjustly neglected . . . . Continue Reading »

The current First Things unfurls Ephraim Radner’s hard-hitting critique of Brad Gregory’s The Unintended Reformation , titled The Reformation Wrongly Blamed (subscription required).  A different Protestant response to Gregory’s book comes by way of the evangelical historian . . . . Continue Reading »

The Pulitzer granted to Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve caused me to revisit R.R. Reno’s prescient First Things review , which suggests the book offers “a justifying mythology for America’s ruling elite.” The Swerve [blusters] again and again about the beauty-loathing, . . . . Continue Reading »

Earthly Visions: Theology and the Challenges of Art ? by Timothy Gorringe Yale University Press, 254 pages, $45 With religion’s expiration, the great artworks of the past had to be rescued”if only for the ecstatic feelings they might still evoke. Bloomsbury bohemian Clive Bell put it . . . . Continue Reading »