I Late August for my mother, in the last decade of her life, was a time of sadness. Inevitably the day would arrive when I could no longer put off telling her that next week the university would have “meetings.” She understood that preliminary meetings were a euphemism for the inescapable . . . . Continue Reading »
Anne Rice, famous for such erotic novels as The Vampire Chronicles , has in recent years returned to the Catholicism of her childhood and begun work on a series of novels about the life of Jesus Christ. The first volume, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt , received a less-than-positive review in the . . . . Continue Reading »
A recent Pew Forum Poll of 35,000 respondents found out something fascinating about agnostics and atheists. Half of all agnostics actually believe in God, at least in terms of a universal force or Primal Origin, perhaps “within.” And 21% of those who call themselves “atheists” . . . . Continue Reading »
While I’m not very informed about the Intelligent Design debate, the idea sounds inoffensive enough: Scientists cannot prove there is a Designer, and neither can they prove there’s no Designer, so why not leave the question open? Instead the concept of Intelligent Design has been greeted . . . . Continue Reading »
In an important decision handed down last week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rebuked Colorado for its handling of a number of state scholarships programs. The court found that the state unconstitutionally discriminated against students attending Colorado Christian University (CCU) and Naropa . . . . Continue Reading »
You know the story. Forty years ago¯on July 25, 1968¯a tired, grumpy, and celibate old man in Rome issued an encyclical called Humanae Vitae , solemnly declaring that birth control is bad, and half the world responded with a shrug. The other half responded with a sneer.It’s hard to . . . . Continue Reading »
Every thinker has one idea—and after he formulates it, all his subsequent works are no more than elaboration: developments and revisions of the same basic intuition. Or so, at least, claimed the French philosopher Henri Bergson, and if ever there was a definitive example, it’s José Ortega y . . . . Continue Reading »
Twenty years ago historian J.G.A. Pocock shook the academic establishment with a sweeping account of the development of republican political ideals, from Florence in the Renaissance to the American Founding. His work, The Machiavellian Moment , was perhaps the most ambitious of its kind to trace the . . . . Continue Reading »
With the record-setting release of The Dark Knight , his sequel to Batman Begins , Christopher Nolan, whose previous films include Memento , Insomnia , and The Prestige , stakes his claim to be our most inventive and most philosophical filmmaker. He has certainly surpassed M. Night Shyamalan, whose . . . . Continue Reading »
Nicosia, Cyprus touts itself¯mournfully but with a dash of pride¯as the world’s “last divided capital.” The southern side, which is muscularly Orthodox when not pedantically secular, boasts dozens of lovingly tended churches and several active, impressive mosques. On a . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
