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Hillary's Purposes and God's

When I heard Hillary Clinton’s statement at the recent 2015 Women in the World Summit that “Deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” for the sake of giving women access to “reproductive health care and safe childbirth,” at first I was confused. She has spoken often about being a Christian and having a rich prayer life, and I have no reason to doubt that she has real religious commitments. I wondered how someone who attends church regularly, prays, and therefore presumably knows something about the value and the sanctity of religious belief could say something so hostile toward religion.Then I thought of Harvey Cox’s The Secular City. Something about her statement rang that bell. I have no idea if Secretary Clinton read Cox’s influential and popular 1965 book, or assuming she did, if the book influenced her thinking. Tracing the particular influences behind anyone’s conceptions is rarely a simple matter. What struck me, though, was the possibility that I have been missing something big: it is likely that many of those who denigrate religious beliefs aren’t drawing just on secular, anti-Christian ideologies, but on liberal Christian ideas about God. What I assume to be anti-religious animus might in some cases actually issue from a particular form of religiosity. Continue Reading »

The Church of the Left

Yuval Levin has an interesting commentary at the blog of National Review. It’s entitled “The Church of the Left,” and it argues for an important shift in the understanding of where religious objectors stand today after the Indiana affair.The shift goes back to the Bill of Rights. . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

FREUD While “The Back Page” is usually my favorite part of First Things, I must object to David Bentley Hart’s characterization of Freudian psychotherapy as deterministic in “­Roland on Free Will” (February). As a psy­chiatrist who has practiced and taught psychodynamic psycho­therapy . . . . Continue Reading »

The End of the University

Universities exist to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and culture that will prepare them for life, while enhancing the intellectual capital upon which we all depend. Evidently the two purposes are distinct. One concerns the growth of the individual, the other our shared need for . . . . Continue Reading »

We Can Win

This issue marks our twenty-fifth anniversary. Our grand adventure in intellectual journalism began in March 1990. Back then, there was reason for optimism. The Roe decision was not yet twenty years old. The Reagan victories in the 1980s demonstrated that political liberalism could be defeated, at . . . . Continue Reading »

Irving Kristol's God

Having long been regarded as the godfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol is well known for his political writings. Less well known are his essays on religion. And yet, the more one reads of his work, the more apparent it becomes that this is in some sense the wrong way around. Though Kristol . . . . Continue Reading »

Kristof’s Imperial Liberalism

Nicholas Kristof’s blatant use of a tired liberal trick astounds me. What does it say about our liberal institutions that a regular columnist at the New York Times can combine a call for tolerance and understanding with crude denunciations of Christian conservatives? Continue Reading »

Taking the Long Way

And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them through the land of the Philistines, even though it was nearer. —Exodus 13:17 For many decades now, America’s political life has been divided between people who call themselves “conservatives” and people . . . . Continue Reading »

Liberalism’s Parochialism

I remain struck by the character of the many responses I’ve read to my postings on women and politics (as well as those on race and violence). There’s been a strong tone of horror and denunciation. Of course, when it comes to social media and blogging, there’s a bias in favor of shrillness and extremism. But what I’ve been reading accords with my experiences in higher education where certain thoughts trigger an almost primitive response from liberal intellectuals. Continue Reading »

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