Alan Greenspan, Chief Magician of Liberalism
Alan Greenspan died this week at the age of one hundred. Greenspan had a long time to make his imprint on the world—and make his imprint he surely did….
June/July 2026
Print Edition
June/July 2026 Print Edition
America’s Most Influential Journal of Religion and Public Life
The Education of Cole Tomas Allen
A Dreadful Humility
At some point we must give up trying to understand other people. Love them, surely. But recognize…
Scout’s Honor
My six-year-old son wants to join the Scouts, but I have mixed feelings. As an Eagle Scout,…
Why I Became Orthodox
Bulbous onion domes topped the Corinthian columns, and baroque stucco architraves lit up the drowsy city toward…
Our Strange Catholic Moment
American Catholicism is in steep decline. In 2000, 2.6 million American children attended Catholic schools. In 2025,…
The Twisted Consequences of Chatbots
Alan Greenspan, Chief Magician of Liberalism
Alan Greenspan died this week at the age of one hundred. Greenspan had a long time to…
In Praise of the Supremes
Article III of the Constitution, which establishes the Supreme Court, is the shortest of the three articles…
Last Call for Submissions to the First Things Poetry Prize
The third annual First Things Poetry Prize is open for submissions until June 30. James Matthew Wilson is this year’s outside…
Jonathan Swift’s Savage Indignation
Miranda: “O wonder! . . . / O brave new world / That has such people in’t!”Prospero:…
Paul Celan’s Via Negativa
In the twentieth century the messengers shot themselves. Most did so metaphorically, of course, though a few…
Catholics and Modern Anti-Semitism
For certain personalities, drugs such as methamphetamine have an almost irresistible appeal. Only later does it turn…
The Truth About Christian Hospitality
The world has changed and the ground has shifted under us. All that is solid melts into…
Delicious Longing
One day around 1836, in the ancient city of Dijon, the young French poet Aloysius Bertrand was…
Has Freya India Cracked the Commodification Problem?
The myth of Narcissus tells of a beautiful young man’s obsession with his own image, captured in…
Liberalism Is Christianity’s Prodigal Child
Something of a shift in the landscape is signaled when a press like Polity releases, almost simultaneously,…
Birds
I wait for themthis dark spun dawn,kinglet, titmouse, nuthatch, wren,names so sweet on winter’s frozen tongue,such feathered…
Irises
Only he could see them clearly: the wayThey curl their shadows close beneath their leaves, Cupping clefts of…
Tool and Toy
When you select the proper tools to use,favor those that make delightful toys,like whistling tops driven by…
The Case For Kids
The most significant thing happening in the world may very well be a thing that is not…
What Sex Really Is
The Right to Sex:Feminism in the Twenty-First Centuryby amia srinivasanfarrar, straus and giroux, 304 pages, $28 In…
The Problem with Salad Bowl Religion
I wonder what my rebbe ancestors would think of me,” writes a young Unitarian Universalist minister in…
The Sex Education We Need
Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexualityby Nancy Pearceybaker books, 336 pages, $22.99 Love…
Abortion and Class
America’s abortion regime and the absolutist ideology that animates it is part of a war by the…
The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism
American evangelicalism is deeply divided. Some evangelicals have embraced the secular turn toward social justice activism, particularly…
