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Jรผrgen Habermasโs Search for Moral Justification
The German philosopher and critical theorist Jรผrgen Habermas has died at the age of ninety-six. The tributes and encomia pour in and will continue to pour in. He deserves...
The Women the Vatican Forgot
Last week, the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a synodal study groupโs final report on โThe Participation of Women in the Life and Leadership of...
Three Great Lenten Themes
The entire purpose of Lent, now past the halfway mark, is to prepare us for the glory of Easter and its revelation of the destiny that God first intended...
The Oscars’ Unlikely Tribute to Motherhood
On Sunday night, while accepting her Academy Award for Best Actress, Hollywood star Jessie Buckley spoke lovingly of her baby daughter who had โno idea what was going onโ...
Goodbye to the Postwar Consensus
The debates of the past year or two surrounding the Second World War have exposed fault lines in American political culture. The war became a surprising issue in the...
The Parasocial Generation
When Technoblade, a popular Minecraft streamer, announced his cancer diagnosis in August 2021, the outpouring of support was immense. Though millions of viewers had never met him in person,...
Mainlining Nostalgiaย
Ryan Burge is unignorable. A political scientist known for his โgraphs about religion,โ Burge is required reading for anyone who writes about Christianity in America today...
How Activism Gets Fundedย (ft. John Sailer)
In the โlatest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, John Sailer joins in to discuss his recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “The...
When the Bells Stop Ringing
Some years ago, I was a resident at Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown, a small postindustrial town in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. In a free moment,...
Leoโs Synodality
Almost one year in, Pope Leoโs vision for his pontificate is still coming into focus. But there are a few key characteristics that are worth noting. First, and most...
How to Write a Russian Novel
The Prodigal of Leningradby daniel taylorparaclete press, 256 pages, $21.99 There is of course no generic โRussian novel.โ Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy; Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn, Sinyavsky/Tertz; the Strugatsky brothers: all Russian...
Knausgaardโs Mephistopheles
Back in college, one of my literature professors once remarked that the first hundred pages of a Balzac novel are often boring, but the ones that follow are the most gripping you have ever read in your life...
Introducing The Jew From Nowhere
Longtime readers of First Things will probably be able to guess the third in this sequence: Catholic, Protestant, _______. Astute observers will also note that First Things has so...
How Kanye Went Naziย
Last year, Kanye Westโsometimes known as Yeโreleased a song titled โNigga Heil Hitler.โ The music video featured rows of black men bathed in blue light fiercely intoning the title...
Against โGod Aloneโ
Aย few years ago, I had some routine surgery. Something went wrong in recovery. The nurses on the floor couldnโt fix it. They couldnโt find the specialist. It was Sunday....