In many spheres, the question not just of what we know but of how we know is urgent and vital. I have tried to develop the notion of love as the ultimate form of knowledge and to explore its wider relevance. My history with this question begins in the 1980s, when I was growing concerned by profound . . . . Continue Reading »
In 2018, Barack Obama urged his Facebook followers to read Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen. We live, Obama said, in a time of “increasing disillusionment with the liberal democratic order.” He traced this disillusionment to a trend that liberal democracies ignore at their own . . . . Continue Reading »
Christianity is an affair of things. The things we see and touch and smell are bearers of the living Christ over time. As inspiring and edifying as the works of great artists are—Caravaggio’s The Calling of St. Matthew in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, . . . . Continue Reading »
In the last fifty years, most writing about modern Catholicism has treated Vatican II as the great watershed. According to the standard narrative, the Church before the Council was wedded to a stultifying scholasticism and sunk in soul-crushing authoritarianism. After the Council, a new spirit . . . . Continue Reading »
This is our 300th number, marking thirty years of publication. In early 1989, Richard John Neuhaus had no inkling that he was about to found First Things. A Lutheran pastor noted for his incisive religious and political commentaries, he was busy running the Center on Religion and Society. The Center . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1901, Rev. Maltbie Babcock wrote in a well-known hymn that God “shines in all that’s fair.” Like Calvin, Edwards, and Babcock before her, Marilynne Robinson presents in her writings a world suffused with theological significance. Robinson is known primarily as a novelist, but anyone who has . . . . Continue Reading »
Anti-Semitism is hardly a thing of the past; it’s a constant, vicious drumbeat—and it’s louder today than it has been in decades. Continue Reading »
The partisans of openness and dialogue are now telling two of Catholicism’s most distinguished sons that their views are unwelcome. Continue Reading »
A review of Tom Dulack’s Paradise Lost, playing now in New York. Continue Reading »
Fleabag is not a nice Catholic show. In many ways it’s grotesque. But one privilege of well-made art is the ability to tell the truth by mistake. Continue Reading »
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