Peter Hitchens is a conservative journalist and author who writes a blog at DailyMail.com. Last week he published a post titled, “Please Protest against the Censorship of First Things magazine.” Here is a taste: For some years I have written...
First Things magazine
The R.R. Reno “Meltdown”
We have written before about R.R. Reno and the First Things magazine response to the coronavirus. On March 20, 2020, we noted Reno’s call to open churches (with a Wendell Berry-inspired response from Eric Miller). Three days later, we called attention...
*First Things* Editor: The “measures we have taken in the last few weeks have been…pointless”
R.R. Reno, the editor of First Things, has used his magazine, which he claims is “America’s most influential journal of religion and public life,” to call for the opening of churches and the economy. He seems to have it all figured...
The “bitter and angry remnant” at *First Things* Magazine
I stopped subscribing to First Things magazine several years ago. I still check the website every now and then, but I am never surprised by what I find there. The magazine is no longer the intellectual feast that it was in the...
Editor of *First Things* Magazine: “There are many things more precious than life”
An editor of a magazine or journal sets it ideological course. R.R. Reno, a conservative Catholic, is the editor of First Things. Since it was founded by Richard John Neuhaus in 1990, First Things has been a beacon of the pro-life movement. So...
Alan Jacobs on *Books and Culture* and *First Things*
Jacobs is taking a break from his popular blog “Snakes and Ladders,” but he decided to do one more post reflecting on the last decade. Here is a taste: I miss Books & Culture, and the First Things that was: for many years...
Some More Thoughts on the Populist Critique of “Elite Evangelicals”
For most evangelical Christians, the message of the Gospel transcends the identity categories we place on human beings. All men and women are sinners in need of redemption. Citizenship in the Kingdom of God, made possible by Jesus’s death and...
Is *First Things* a Populist Magazine?
I check the First Things website every day and often link to pieces I find interesting. But I stopped reading First Things regularly after Richard John Neahaus passed away. (I used to subscribe and read each issue cover-to-cover). On Friday, ...
Some Comments on Peter Leithart’s *First Things* Review of *Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump*
First Things assigned Peter Leithart, the president of an organization called Theopolis Institute, to review my Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump. The title of his review is “Trump Among the Evangelicals.” Here is the relevant part of the...
Conservatives Are at Each Other’s Throats. Alan Jacobs Weighs-In
I have not been following this whole David French–Sohrab Ahmari dust-up happening right now conservative circles, but I am guessing it has something to do with Trump. But I did get a kick out of this exchange between an editor...
Trump and “Expressive Individualism”
Some good analysis here by Ronald E. Osborn: In a 2011 article in First Things, the Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart pondered why so many literary depictions of the devil present him as attractive, witty, stylish and debonair. If there...
Has Free-Market Catholic Social Teaching Run Its Course?
Anthony Annett of the Earth Institute at Columbia University seems to think so. In a recent blog post at dotCommonweal titled “The Fall of the House of Neuhaus,” Annett offers a brief history of the way Neuhaus and his friends...
R.R. Reno on Pope Francis: “Someone has to mind the store while the Jesuit is on the peripheries”
The Jesuit magazine America is running an interview with First Things editor R.R. Reno on Francis’s visit to the United States. As some of you know, America tends to emphasize the social justice and progressive side of Catholicism and First Things is known for defending a...
The “George Weigel Problem”
George Weigel Ouch!As a former Catholic and someone who is for the most part sympathetic with Catholic social teaching, it has always baffled me how Catholics–especially American Catholics–tend to be so selective when they talk about the social teachings of...
Is Pope Francis a “Radical Leftist”?
Conservatives are not happy with Pope Francis. They are saying that he should not be making “political” statements.” I am not a Catholic theologian or an expert on Catholic social teaching, but isn’t Francis just being a consistent Catholic? Somebody...