First Things RSS Feed - Yoram Hazony https://www.firstthings.com/author/yoram-hazony en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:57:15 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/yoram-hazony 60 Conservative Democracy https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/01/conservative-democracy https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/01/conservative-democracy Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 -0500 The present moment is one of growing discomfort, both in America and in Europe, with the regnant liberal political theory often described as liberal democracy . It is frequently said that the only genuine alternatives to liberal democracy are Marxism and Fascism, but I don’t believe this is true. I want to sketch an alternative viewpoint that I will call conservative democracy. This ­position is closer to the spirit of traditional constitutionalism in both America and Britain than the liberal political theories of our day. Moreover, it is far better equipped to maintain the free institutions of these nations than liberalism.

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]]> The Miracle of Esther https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/03/the-miracle-of-esther https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/03/the-miracle-of-esther Tue, 01 Mar 2016 00:00:00 -0500 Esther is a book of the Bible that does not refer to God explicitly even once. On the surface, it is a story about political intrigue, sex, and violence. Yet the rabbis of the Talmud lavish praise on this work, asserting that there are two portions of Scripture that would never cease to be relevant to mankind: the books of Moses and the Book of Esther. And while they taught that the other parts of the Bible could bring an understanding of piety, wisdom, consolation, and greatness, it was only the Book of Esther that they thought offered the key to the miraculous.

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]]> The Biblical Case for Limited Government https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/10/the-biblical-case-for-limited-government https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/10/the-biblical-case-for-limited-government Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0400 The writings of Plato and Aristotle are often described as works of reason, as opposed to the Bible, which is said to be revelation_—a text that bypasses our natural faculties to give us knowledge directly from God through a series of miracles. This assumption about the revealed character of the biblical texts, and the stigma of unreason that comes along with it, is probably the greatest factor affecting attitudes toward the Bible in modern discourse.

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