First Things RSS Feed - Steven D. Smith https://www.firstthings.com/author/steven-d-smith en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:53:33 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/steven-d-smith 60 Burying Barronelle Stutzman https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/07/burying-barronelle-stutzman https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/07/burying-barronelle-stutzman Tue, 06 Jul 2021 06:00:00 -0400 It’s deja vu: A Republican president (Nixon, Reagan, the first Bush, Trump) has a historic opportunity to appoint several justices to the Supreme Court, creating the expectation that the Court will push back on an advancing body of law that the president’s supporters perceive as threatening fundamental constitutional commitments. But when the time comes, the justices waffle, or dodge, or disappear—which is what happened again on Friday, when the justices declined to review the case of Arlene’s Flowers v. Washington .

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]]> Why School Prayer Matters https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/05/why-school-prayer-matters https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/05/why-school-prayer-matters Fri, 01 May 2020 06:00:00 -0400 In his State of the Union address and elsewhere, President Trump has emphasized the importance of prayer in public schools. In one speech he promised “big action” on the matter. But just what action he is contemplating remains obscure. Teacher-led prayer to open the school day? Football players kneeling in the end zone? Religious clubs meeting after school?

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]]> On the Square https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/04/004-on-the-square https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/04/004-on-the-square Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America

by Richard John Neuhaus

Eerdmans, 292 pages, $28

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]]> The Wages of Advocacy https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/02/002-the-wages-of-advocacy https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/02/002-the-wages-of-advocacy Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Liberty of Conscience:

In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality

by Martha Nussbaum

Basic Books, 320 pages, $27.50

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]]> Conciliating Hatred https://www.firstthings.com/article/2004/06/conciliating-hatred https://www.firstthings.com/article/2004/06/conciliating-hatred Tue, 01 Jun 2004 00:00:00 -0400 These days, if you announce that the Supreme Court is doing politics rather than law you will provoke more yawns than protests. But what sort of politics is the Court doing? Justice Antonin Scalia frequently charges the Court with stepping out of its judicial role and taking sides in the culture wars. That is eminently plausible. Still, we are admonished to have charity, and a more charitable interpretation is at least possible. Some of the Justices, including some who are most centrally placed on the Court, seem to have a very different self-understanding. They seem to see themselves as performing the political function of national conciliation. 

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]]> Legal Theories Nobody Believes https://www.firstthings.com/article/2000/11/legal-theories-nobody-believes https://www.firstthings.com/article/2000/11/legal-theories-nobody-believes Wed, 01 Nov 2000 00:00:00 -0500 The Warren Court and American Politics
by Lucas A. Powe, Jr.
Harvard University Press. 566 pp. $35


Brennan and Democracy
by Frank I. Michelman Princeton University Press. 148 pp. $24.95

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]]> The Constitution in the Cave https://www.firstthings.com/article/2000/05/the-constitution-in-the-cave https://www.firstthings.com/article/2000/05/the-constitution-in-the-cave Mon, 01 May 2000 00:00:00 -0400 There’s an old and famous story about a community of people who live in a cave. Fires burn behind them, throwing shadows of various shapes onto the cave wall; and never having seen real objects in the sunlight, the cave people think these shadows are the only and most complete reality. One day, though, one of the cave dwellers happens to find a passageway to the outside world. He heroically struggles up the passageway and emerges into the world. At first the sunlight blinds his eyes, but after his vision adapts he sees, for the first time, a world far more real and rich than any he and his community ever imagined. Out of a sense of duty, the enlightened one then returns to the cave, hoping to guide his fellows to a similar illumination.

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]]> Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment: Essential Rights and Liberties https://www.firstthings.com/article/2000/04/religion-and-the-american-constitutional-experiment-essential-rights-and-liberties https://www.firstthings.com/article/2000/04/religion-and-the-american-constitutional-experiment-essential-rights-and-liberties Sat, 01 Apr 2000 00:00:00 -0500 John Witte’s book on religious freedom is a work of impressive erudition and formidable complacency. Witte capably surveys the historical developments preceding the First Amendment and supplies a helpful overview of the often neglected period from the adoption of that amendment through the 1940s, when the Supreme Court invaded the field. Later chapters give interesting details on the history of tax exemptions for church property and also furnish a comparative perspective with a quick look at international human rights law. The book contains a wealth of information about, for example, state constitutional provisions and Supreme Court decisions, much of it accessibly presented in appendices. And the chapters summarizing modern establishment and free exercise clause decisions discuss the central cases, accurately on the whole. If the overall presentation here is a bit convoluted, the problem results in part from the fact that it is hard to present in an orderly and sensible way material that is the opposite of orderly and sensible.

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]]> The Constitution of Babel https://www.firstthings.com/article/1998/01/the-constitution-of-babel https://www.firstthings.com/article/1998/01/the-constitution-of-babel Thu, 01 Jan 1998 00:00:00 -0500 These are the times, as recent issues of this journal reflect, for reassessing our constitutional tradition, and current constitutional decisions and discussions are a good place to start. But a perceptive observer will immediately notice a puzzling, almost schizophrenic quality in modern constitutional discourse.

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