
Finding Faith in the Fragments
When your parents were married for seventeen years before you were born, as mine were, you spend an awful lot of time scrutinizing scrapbooks, absorbing family lore, and trying…
March 2025
Print Edition


March 2025 Print Edition

America’s Most Influential Journal of Religion and Public Life
The Age of De-Globalization
Large Language Poetry
In my ideal undergraduate course in literary criticism, the first semester would include a brisk introduction to…
The Re-Churching of Men
Church life in America has been majority-female for some time. According to Pew Research, women make up…
Biden Is the New Francis
Early in 2016, articles began to appear noting similarities between Pope Francis and Donald Trump. Trump’s promise…
Covenantal Capitalism
One recent afternoon, while visiting Universal Studios, I found myself seriously contemplating socialism. I was standing in…

The First Things Podcast
Super Bowls and Bad Samaritans
The editors discuss Super Bowl 59—why we watched, who tried to rig the outcome, and what Taylor Swift will do next. Then we talk JD Vance, Pope Francis, and…

The Editor’s Desk
Architecture for Real People
In this episode, Anselm Audley joins Rusty Reno on The Editor’s Desk to talk about his essay “Cities for Humans” from the January 2024 issue of the magazine. The conversation…

Conversations
From Science to God
The latest installment of an ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein. Spencer A. Klavan joins in to discuss his recent book, Light of the Mind, Light of the…
Give the National Endowment for the Arts Back to the Public
On Getting Old
Two years plus a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column that began thus: “I am…
The USCCB Should Reject Federal Funds
On Monday, Pope Francis sent a letter to the bishops of the United States. Criticizing the Trump…
God and Man at Wheaton
Wheaton College once produced some of the boldest Christian voices in America. With graduates like Billy Graham,…
Eliminating DEI from Higher Education
President Trump’s executive order “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” puts colleges and universities on notice. If…
Finding Faith in the Fragments
When your parents were married for seventeen years before you were born, as mine were, you spend…
Dostoevsky’s Credo
What does it mean to believe something? Is it possible for a person to profess an idea…
Letter to a Young Bishop
Your Excellency, I’m writing only because you asked. I have so far successfully avoided the role of…
Merkelʼs Country
Freedom: Memoirs 1954–2021by angela merkelst. martinʼs, 720 pages, $40 German readers have a powerful appetite for doorstop…
Mind the Gap
Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religiousby ross douthatzondervan, 240 pages, $29.99 I grew up in a religiously sympathetic,…
Necessary Societies
On the Dignity of Society:Catholic Social Teaching and Natural Lawby f. russell hittinger,edited by scott j. ronigercatholic…
The End of March
Stands of bearded iris, purple in mourningSpring up, early, among their cool green speartips,Pale and pointed, palmlike,…
Letter to a Middle-Aged Poet
Nature and history have made us what we are, fat hapless amateurs stranded some ninety million miles from the nearest…
Birds of the Air
Look— crimson berries for songbirds, writhing worms for red-breasted early birds, swarming mice and astonished doves plucked…
A Theology of Fiction
A spirited debate has been going on for nearly a decade now, much of it in these pages,…
Death in Naples
The taxi driver shouted, “Tell us! Tell us!” when his other passenger, a local journalist, announced that…
Immigration Idealism
For much of my life, I believed in open borders. Aside from violent criminals, I could think…
Harry Potter’s Magic
By now most readers in this country are aware of what has come to be called the…
A Jewish Theology of Resurrection
Does Judaism need a theology of Christianity? The usual answer is no: Whereas without Jews and Judaism…
Alexander Dugin Explained
Many sense that the West needs to reconsider its philosophical foundations. Reflexive appeals to old pieties no…