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Religious Freedom Is the Soul of American Security
In the quiet sanctuary of West Point’s Old Cadet Chapel, a striking mural crowns the apse above the altar. Painted by Robert Weir and titled Peace and War, it...
Our Year in Booksโ2025
First Things editors and writers share the most memorable books they read this year. R. R. RenoEditor Our political culture is changing. Book publishers are eager to put out...
Dark Phantoms
It happened quickly, so quickly that youโd think it was impossible to retain the image. The Ohio Turnpike in October 2024, 5:30 a.m. and pitch-black, the road straight and...
Secularism, Security, and โCivilizational Erasureโ
Twenty years ago, I published a small book, The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God. It enjoyed a fair sale, got translated into French, Spanish,...
The Fertility Crisis Will Not Be Solved by Economics Alone
The Westโs demographic dearth is capturing the attention of growing numbers of public officials. Speaking on October 14 after a meeting with Italian president Sergio Mattarella, Pope Leo XIV...
The Smiling Archbishop of New York
More than sixteen years ago, on the morning of his installation Mass at St. Patrickโs Cathedral in New York, an ebullient (when was he not?) Archbishop Timothy Dolan greeted...
John Wilsonโs Year of Reading
This list would have been different a couple of months ago, or yesterdayโmaybe even in the wee hours tonightโbut here are some of the books I particularly enjoyed (excluding...
What Does โPostliberalismโ Mean?
Many regard โpostliberalismโ as a political program. In 1993, when the tide of globalized liberalism was at its highwater mark, the contrarian John Gray published Post-Liberalism: Studies in Political...
Divine Ballet
This fall, Arthouse2B, in partnership with Ballet Hartford, hosted a performance named โBallet and the Theology Withinโ in New York City. The Big Apple is known for its ballet:...
Wassailing at Christmas
Every year on January 17, revelers gather in an orchard near the Butcherโs Arms in the Somerset village of Carhampton, in the Brendon Hills. There, โwassailersโ walk between the trees, splashing them with cider...
Canadaโs Combatting Hate Act Hates Religious Freedom
A new Canadian bill that seeks to strengthen existing hate speech law in the country has worrying implications for expressive and religious freedoms. Tabled in September, the Combatting Hate...
Keep Lighting Candles
On December 23, 1981, President Ronald Reagan called for Americans to place a lighted candle in the window on Christmas Eve. He did so at the request of Romuald...
Make Me A Lutheran
John Fisher, the renowned Bishop of Rochester, is known to history chiefly for having been put to death by King ยญHenry VIII...
What Vivek Gets Wrong About Citizenship
December is here. The air is chill, the leaves have fallen, and children are preparing for school break, looking forward to wrapping presents in the glow of a decorous...
Tucker and the Right
Something like a civil war is unfolding within the American conservative movement. It is not merely a dispute about policy agendas, foreign alliances, or the boundaries of political discourse. It is a deeper conflictโa struggle over the meaning of conservatism itself...