Visiting an Armenian Archbishop in Prison
On February 3, I stood in a poorly lit meeting room in the National Security Services building in Yerevan, Armenia, as Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan prayed a blessing over me…
February 2026
Print Edition
February 2026 Print Edition
America’s Most Influential Journal of Religion and Public Life
The Failure of Bioethics
A Tale of Two Maybes
Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we perish not”…
Mark Twain’s Religion
In 2014, when Kevin Malone’s opera Mysterious 44 premiered in Manchester, England, the production featured narrative voiceovers…
On the Pleasure of Admiring
The great essayist William Hazlitt observed that there is pleasure in hating. “Without something to hate,”…
AI as Liberation
You can learn everything you need to know about our collective state of mind from the fact…
Is Church-Hopping a Real Problem?
The Protestant Mind
The following is an excerpt from the first edition of The Protestant Mind, a newsletter from First Things. We invite…
Visiting an Armenian Archbishop in Prison
On February 3, I stood in a poorly lit meeting room in the National Security Services building…
Blessed Fulton Sheen, a Modern Evangelist for Christ
No doubt many people will offer their own reflections on the life of Archbishop Fulton Sheen…
Gavin Newsom’s Vogue Politics
When Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, I was living in England and briefly became an…
Cancer and the Cure of Souls
“I have cancer,” the elderly woman announced from her hospital bed high above York Avenue in Manhattan.…
In the Footsteps of Aeneas
Gian Lorenzo Bernini had only just turned twenty when he finished his sculpture of Aeneas, the mythical…
The Rise and Fall of Gay Activism
The Pride flag is progressive America’s banner. Before it was unfurled, most gays stayed in the closet.…
The Theology of Roe
A controversial abortion case reaches the Supreme Court, and men in black robes impose their religious views…
Stevenson’s Treasure
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) belongs at the head of a select company of writers renowned in their…
Can Liberals Be Pronatalists?
Last year the United Nations Population Division predicted that global population will peak in approximately sixty years,…
The Wallet
Oxblood, bifold, kept In a back bedroom Closet all these years, It dates to my time Of…
Another Madonna
Many may not notice the young rabbit, caughtin the thicket of brush near the bottom left-hand corner,…
Birdwatching
The people I want most to like all do it. I listen to their talk of swifts and…
Implied Consent
Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether the Affordable Care Act’s “contraception mandate”— the requirement…
A Nation Under God
Our country has a long tradition of official encouragement of religion on a non-sectarian basis. That tradition…
Taking Religious Freedom Seriously
Passage of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment…
The Ten Commandments in the Courthouse
Recently, I visited the New York State Courthouse in Jamaica, Queens. For readers who don’t know, Queens…
The Faith of the Founding
My colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Walter Berns, has written that the philosophy of John Locke…
Keeping the Commandments
Given the contentiousness of public life in America today it was inevitable that the bulky stone monument…
