First Things RSS Feed - Stephen Schwartz https://www.firstthings.com/author/stephen-schwartz en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:53:41 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/stephen-schwartz 60 Remembering Kevin Starr, Catholic Historian https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2017/01/remembering-kevin-starr-catholic-historian https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2017/01/remembering-kevin-starr-catholic-historian Wed, 18 Jan 2017 11:05:00 -0500 The passing of Kevin Starr, the notable historian of California, is already being observed with predictable political correctness. For his series of popular surveys, beginning with the 1973 volume Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915, Starr has been noted as a paragon of the state’s presumptive, if unacknowledged, secessionism. His breadth of research and easy style made him palatable to readers of all ideological tendencies, to whom he preached a kind of “California exceptionalism.”

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]]> Dylan’s Nobel in Perspective https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2016/11/dylans-nobel-in-perspective https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2016/11/dylans-nobel-in-perspective Tue, 01 Nov 2016 10:20:00 -0400 The awarding of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature to Bob Dylan has provoked enthusiasm and dismay since its announcement on October 13. Dylan himself has indicated distaste for the distinction by ignoring it. His silence called forth a rebuke from the Stockholm apparatus, wherein Per Wastberg, a writer, called Dylan “arrogant and impolite.” But Sara Danius, secretary of the Swedish Academy, quickly explained: “A member of the academy, Per Wastberg, has publicly expressed his disappointment at Bob Dylan’s omitted response. This is Mr. Wastberg’s private opinion and is not to be taken as the official standpoint of the Swedish Academy.”

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]]> Mother Teresa's Worlds https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/06/mother-teresas-worlds https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/06/mother-teresas-worlds Wed, 01 Jun 2016 00:00:00 -0400 Since receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, Mother Teresa has been a global symbol of mercy and charity embodied in the selfless worship of God. Her renown is likely to grow in the next year if the canonization process that commenced almost twenty years ago is completed. Following her death at eighty-seven in 1997, she was beatified. Pope John Paul II waived the normal five-year waiting period before a “cause” leading to canonization may commence, and allowed the process to begin in 1999. Already in 2000, Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim believers joined Catholics in Kolkata to pray for her canonization to proceed.

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]]> Christian Freedom Amidst Persecution https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/05/christian-freedom-amidst-persecution https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/05/christian-freedom-amidst-persecution Fri, 06 May 2016 00:00:00 -0400 Christianity and Freedom, Vol. II, Contemporary Perspectives
edited by allen d. hertzke & timothy samuel shah
 cambridge, 518 pages, $145.50

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]]> Attack on Mother Teresa’s Nuns in Yemen https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2016/03/attack-on-mother-teresas-nuns-in-yemen https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2016/03/attack-on-mother-teresas-nuns-in-yemen Thu, 10 Mar 2016 11:35:00 -0500 On Friday, March 4, sixteen people were murdered in a terrorist attack at a nursing home in Aden, the main city on the coast of southern Yemen. The dead comprised four nuns, who served in the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Blessed Mother Teresa, plus eight elderly residents, their guards, and a gardener.

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]]> Christianity for the Workers https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/01/christianity-for-the-workers https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/01/christianity-for-the-workers Fri, 29 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0500 Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago
by heath w. carter
oxford , 278 pages, $35.00

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]]> Francis in Sarajevo https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/11/francis-in-sarajevo https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/11/francis-in-sarajevo Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 -0400 On Saturday, June 6, Pope Francis ­visited Sarajevo, the ­capital of partitioned Bosnia-Hercegovina. Although treated by international media as a typical papal tour, the event strengthened the potential of the Croat Catholic hierarchy in Bosnia to serve as agents of peace and reconciliation. This is notable in a nation torn asunder, during the 1992–95 Bosnian war, between Bosnian Muslims (also called “Bosniaks”), Bosnian Croat Catholics, and Bosnian Serbian Orthodox Christians. To an outsider, this heated and complex religious landscape is often difficult to understand.

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]]> Evangelicals in the World of Islam https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/08/evangelicals-in-the-world-of-islam https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/08/evangelicals-in-the-world-of-islam Tue, 25 Aug 2015 00:00:00 -0400 American Apostles: When Evangelicals Entered the World of Islam  
by Christine Leigh Heyrman
 Hill & Wang, 352 pages, $28.00

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]]> Junípero Serra https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/05/junpero-serra https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/05/junpero-serra Wed, 20 May 2015 00:00:00 -0400 On September 23, at a mass in Washington, DC, Pope Francis is scheduled to canonize Blessed Junípero Serra (1713-84), the Franciscan founder of the Spanish missions in California.

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]]> Famous Communists and Islam https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/02/famous-communists-and-islam https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/02/famous-communists-and-islam Wed, 11 Feb 2015 10:28:00 -0500 For some time, an argument has been made that the liberal left, in refusing to examine the problems of Islam, has betrayed its Enlightenment roots. That is, while secular, feminist, and protective of free speech in dealing with its Western peers, the liberal left has been accused of abandoning its heritage in its quest for political correctness regarding Muslims.

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