Vincent van Gogh pencil and charcoal drawing, 1883 She has no gold, no myrrh, no frankincense, Yet comes to him this night on bended knee To rock his cradle, not a recompense, But a gift to him. This is . . . . Continue Reading »
François Noël Babeuf (1760–1797), known as “Gracchus,” was a French revolutionary and social incendiary. He was the instigator of Babouvism, an ideology of ferocious, leveling terrorism to bring about radical equality. He was guillotined by the French Directorate. Babeuf . . . . Continue Reading »
Our children, now lanky teenagers and just past The part where it’s all about them, are hilariously Interested about such odd parental phrases as the Cat’s pajamas and punching a clock and Captain Kangaroo and bomb shelter. Every other day . . . . Continue Reading »
“Triptych of the Madonna and Child with Angel Musicians, St. John the Baptist, and St. Jerome”(1400, in a Private Collection)Her face is singularly simple, and His Seems unaware of the inscription written Across the scroll His hands unfold to us, Words spoken to Moses from the burning . . . . Continue Reading »
This year, of course, we mark the centenary of the beginning of the end. It was in July of 1914 that European civilization entered its final death throes, the last convulsions of which would not subside for more than thirty years. After that, not even the illusions remained. The great Western . . . . Continue Reading »
I happened to be in Paris several years ago on the evening they were giving out the Césars, the French equivalent of the Oscars. Early the next morning, I turned on the television to see who had won. The first news story was not about film stars, but the posthumous publication of Albert Camus’s . . . . Continue Reading »
As 2013 draws to a close I’d like to look back at the past year for First Things magazine. We published some winners, to be sure, but also some losers. And so, with Lot’s wife as a warning against dwelling on the past, here are some observations. . . . Continue Reading »
There is a small but growing movement among evangelicals against unique friendship for Israel, embodied by the recent “Impact Holy Land” conference hosted by Evangelicals for Social Action in Philadelphia. Among the prominent U.S. and Palestinian church voices who spoke was Lynne Hybels, co-founder with her pastor husband Bill of the Chicago area Willow Creek Church, which itself spawned a widely replicated model for especially non-denominational congregations… . Continue Reading »
Jon Berkeley’s illustration for a January 2010 Economist cover depicts Steve Jobs as a modern Moses with a saintly halo. One of his trademark black turtlenecks peeks through his biblical robe, as Jobs displays an iPad instead of the twin stone tablets of Exodus. Joan Schneider, a publicist, told Harvard Business Review in 2010 that Jobs was like a specter, which “appears when there’s something big going on and then fades back from view. It almost gives you goosebumps when you see him.” … Continue Reading »
“In many and various ways,” the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, does God reveal Himself. I was reminded of this again recently while reading the Gospels. It’s thrilling to think about what it would have been like to hear His words freshly delivered while sitting amongst thousands in the rocky countryside of Judea or pressed against a perspiring mob in a synagogue. There would have been moments of awe and wonder at Jesus’s description of the coming Kingdom, joy and comfort in His renderings of the Beatitudes or the Good Shepherd and His flock. But at other times, there were reactions much more visceral in nature—those of shock and bewilderment. . . . Continue Reading »
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