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

The Sense of the Census

From First Thoughts

We just got our Census form in the mail. Well, it’s not the census form, it’s the warm-up census form, telling us that we’re going to get the census form shortly and to look forward to it. We have a week to get all excited before the main event (guess this is what the Department of . . . . Continue Reading »

Vatican Music

From First Thoughts

I just lost my lunch all over my desk watching the Youtube promo for this “Alma Mater” release of “Music from the Vatican,” voiced-over by Pope Benedict. They keep saying “it works, it just works,” but I suppose that what they mean is that it will work if they make a . . . . Continue Reading »

Beauty and Ms. Boyle

From First Thoughts

In case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past ten days, you might not have heard that the big news hasn’t had anything to do with pirates off of the horn of Africa, or bankers on Wall Street, or politicos in Washington or most certainly professors in a university anywhere. . . . . Continue Reading »

Happy New Liturgical Year!

From Web Exclusives

Happy New Year. Yes, I’m pushing it, but not as much as you think. I’m not talking about those woozie performances of “Auld Lang Syne” and the Rose Bowl, but instead the first Sunday of Advent that started off this week.Once a year I have the pleasure of introducing our students . . . . Continue Reading »

Some Notes on the Music Front

From First Thoughts

Britain’s Daily Telegraph is reporting that the Chinese are beginning to put the kibosh on performances of classical music with Christian themes. A performance of the Mozart Requiem by the Sinfonica Orchestra di Roma intended for the main square of the city of Dujiangyn (where thousands were . . . . Continue Reading »

The Popsicle Index

From Web Exclusives

It’s hot here in Tennessee and I’m thinking about Popsicles. I’ll get back to that.Last weekend, my wife, Janet, and I drove over to Hohenwald, seat of tiny Lewis County, Tennessee (pop. 11,000-plus). Although best known as the place on the Natchez Trace where Meriwether Lewis met his . . . . Continue Reading »

One College That’s Getting It Right

From First Thoughts

I was stunned. I have been teaching college freshmen for about thirty years in big state institutions, elite conservatories, smallish private universities, and Christian colleges, and I’d never seen anything like it. Like many of us reading these pages, I was in the middle of that spring . . . . Continue Reading »