First Things RSS Feed - Ross McCullough https://www.firstthings.com/author/ross-mccullough en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:54:54 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/ross-mccullough 60 Litany of the Cross https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/06/litany-of-the-cross https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/06/litany-of-the-cross Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0400 Save us, O Holy Cross.

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]]> A Visit to Cumorah, Hill of the Mormons https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/06/a-visit-to-cumorah-hill-of-the-mormons https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/06/a-visit-to-cumorah-hill-of-the-mormons Tue, 24 Jun 2014 00:00:00 -0400 They had evidently not read Stanley Hauerwas. There were perhaps no actual American flags in the visitor’s center—and anyway, this wasn’t a sanctuary—but even so, it’s hard to imagine a more American aesthetic. The brand was boardroom Christianity: well-manicured lawns; well-dressed staff; the whole place conference room clean. “Successful” was mentioned several times, for children, for careers, never in a way that would imply the cross (the martyrs, etc.) as a success. The sculpture of the resurrected Christ was a copy, apparently in plaster, of a nineteenth century Danish marble: that great highpoint of assimilated Christianity, made infamous by Kierkegaard, in its new world simulacrum.

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]]> God and the Gaps https://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/04/god-and-the-gaps https://www.firstthings.com/article/2013/04/god-and-the-gaps Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Most often the story is told like this: There is some feature of the world that science is at a loss to explain. Christians rush to claim that this feature can only be explained by God. Science later produces probable non-theistic hypotheses, and the Christians must beat a hasty retreat. In the early nineteenth century, the feature was the complexity of life, the scientific explanation Darwinian evolution.

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]]> Westernizing Islam and the American Right https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/06/westernizing-islam-and-the-american-right https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/06/westernizing-islam-and-the-american-right Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400 At the end of The Searchers , John Wayne stands framed by the darkened doorway of a cabin, and with the dry scrub and John Ford vastness behind him he contemplates the house his successful search party has just entered. He looks inside for a second, half smiles, turns, and walks with his John Wayne slouch back into the sandstone and prairie. The door closes in front of the camera, the screen is thrown into blackness, and the credits roll. John Wayne ain’t gonna do civilization: The End.

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]]> The Beauty of the Ethical https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/04/the-beauty-of-the-ethical https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/04/the-beauty-of-the-ethical Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400 How, then, shall he be a god,
who has not as yet been made a man?

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