Joseph Bottum

Another month, another issue of First Things . Just a typical production of the magazine¯this and that, jammed together randomly in the vain hope that some lucky synergy will make it all work. I’m fairly sure none of it is worth your time.Well, except maybe for R.R. Reno’s essay, . . . . Continue Reading »

One rarely needs to argue in favor of free will. "Sir, we know our will is free, and there’s an end on it," as Samuel Johnson once snarled. The notion that human beings might not possess at least some ability to choose their actions is treated, among philosophers, primarily as a toy . . . . Continue Reading »

A word in your ear ¯A well-known physicist told me that a popular blogger told him that an unnamed source told her that a distinguished elderly lady told the unnamed source that the pope told the distinguished elderly lady that the long-rumored motu proprio on the Latin Mass will appear on the . . . . Continue Reading »

Having apparently gone on a silent retreat during Lent, Pope Benedict’s long-rumored motu proprio on the Latin mass looks as though it may put on its new biretta and stroll out for the Easter Parade. It’s completely ready! says Le Figaro .Er, it’s maybe ready! says the Catholic . . . . Continue Reading »

Poor Tony Judt. The much-published author of such books as Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 and Past Imperfect , Judt recently took to the pages of the New York Times to review Michael Burleigh’s new volume, Sacred Causes . It was not what you might call a positive review: "This is . . . . Continue Reading »

"Peace is a communist plot," Irving Kristol used to observe back during the Cold War. The line was one of his typically brilliant and overstated ways of focusing attention on a insufficiently noted fact¯in this case, the fact that nearly every organization with the word peace in its . . . . Continue Reading »

I think it was David Brooks who coined, years ago, the term "beyondist." A beyondist is someone who urges us to get beyond left/right distinctions, beyond partisan politics, beyond the stymied options of the day. Jim Wallis is a good example, as the title of his book God’s Politics: . . . . Continue Reading »

The April 2007 issue of First Things is now on newsstands¯which also means that it’s available online for subscribers.This is another strong, wide-ranging issue of the magazine¯if we do say so ourselves. Which we do. I mean, it’s part of our job to insist that all new issues . . . . Continue Reading »

Writing on the Web good not is. Too fast, it move. Too quick, it change. And telegraphed its punches are.Of course, that’s the nature of the beast. Be angry at the sun for setting if these things anger you. Every morning, I read the newspaper editorials linked on Real Clear Politics , the . . . . Continue Reading »

Joseph Bottum writes: After six years of President Bush”thought by nearly every observer to be the most socially conservative president of recent decades”where does social conservatism stand? No one can deny there have been some bright spots: the defeat of the Democrats’ Senate leader Tom . . . . Continue Reading »