First Things RSS Feed - Michael Root https://www.firstthings.com/author/michael-root en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:56:27 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/michael-root 60 Overcoming Theological Amnesia https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/12/overcoming-theological-amnesia https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/12/overcoming-theological-amnesia Sun, 01 Dec 2024 00:00:00 -0500 Ressourcement. It’s a French word that means “resourcing”—or, better, “re-sourcing.” As a term in theology, it calls for renewal based on a return to richer, more original sources, especially the Fathers of the early Church. Born in the Francophone world between the two world wars, ressourcement emerged as one of the great theological movements of twentieth-century Catholicism. It flourished despite suspicions and opposition, and it became an international movement. No history of modern Catholic theology can be told without giving prominent attention to figures who flew the flag of ressourcement.

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]]> Ecumenical Winter? https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/10/ecumenical-winter https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/10/ecumenical-winter Mon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 -0400 In 1870, during a plenary session of the First Vatican Council, the Croatian bishop Josip Strossmayer complained that the introduction to what would become the Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith contained an unnecessary and false claim that modern unbelief could be traced to Protestantism. On the contrary, argued Strossmayer, the roots of unbelief stretched back to medieval Catholic culture. Voltaire had come from Catholic France, and many Protestants were able defenders of Christian truth. At this point, the bishops assembled in St. Peter’s Basilica began to shout Strossmayer down. Cardinal Filippo de Angelis, presiding at the session, rang his bell and proclaimed, “This is not the place to praise Protestants.” Strossmayer tried to continue, but his words were lost in the tumult, and eventually he gave up in protest.

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]]> D.C. City Council Violates Catholic Schools' Right to Free Exercise of Religion https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/03/dcs-city-council-violates-catholic-schools-right-to-free-exercise-of-religion https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/03/dcs-city-council-violates-catholic-schools-right-to-free-exercise-of-religion Thu, 26 Mar 2015 13:53:00 -0400 One might think that the District of Columbia, our nation’s capital, would be particularly vigilant in defending the freedoms fundamental to American life. Unfortunately, the District’s City Council has now seen fit to intervene into the life of religious institutions and insist that such institutions handle some topics in ways amenable to the Council’s opinions.

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]]> Reforming the German Family https://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/11/reforming-the-german-family https://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/11/reforming-the-german-family Fri, 01 Nov 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Which is more important for the family: marriage or Sunday-closing laws? The answer is clear for the Protestant church in Germany: Marriage is not to be considered a “presupposition” for family, but Sunday-closing laws are “indispensable” for families. Such are the conclusions of Between Autonomy and Dependence: Strengthening Family as a Reliable Community , a study released in June by the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, the federation of regional Lutheran, Reformed, and United churches that includes almost all German Protestants.

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]]> The Achievement of Wolfhart Pannenberg https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/03/the-achievement-of-wolfhart-pannenberg https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/03/the-achievement-of-wolfhart-pannenberg Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0500 Some theologians are mirrors of their time. The mid-twentieth century rises from the pages of Tillich as palpably as Combray rising from Proust’s tea and madeleines. Other theologians have a more conflicted relation with their age: engaged, but cutting against the grain; in their time, but not quite of it. Wolfhart Pannenberg, one of the most gifted Protestant theologians of his generation, has never seemed quite to fit his surroundings, which may say more about his surroundings than about him. The German theological world has been far less shaken than the English-speaking world by the changes in academic culture of the last decades: feminism, the hermeneutics of suspicion, the dismissal of truth-claims as disguised assertions of power. Even by German standards, however, Pannenberg’s theology has an oddly old-fashioned air.

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]]> The Wrong Key https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/12/the-wrong-key https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/12/the-wrong-key Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500 Christ the Key
By Kathryn Tanner
Cambridge, 309 pages, $29.99

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]]> The Indulgence Controversy, Again https://www.firstthings.com/article/2001/12/the-indulgence-controversy-again https://www.firstthings.com/article/2001/12/the-indulgence-controversy-again Sat, 01 Dec 2001 00:00:00 -0500 Most Protestants may not be able to give a precise explanation of the doctrine of justification or, for that matter, of any other central doctrine of the Reformation, but they often have a vague sense that Martin Luther’s protest began with an attack on indulgences. What exactly indulgences were may be a bit foggy for them, but they know indulgences were something bad, very Roman Catholic, and had something to do with working or, worse, buying one’s way into heaven.

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