I just finished reading Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance by Ian Buruma. Ian Buruma is Dutch, and after the 2005 murder of Theo van Gogh by a young Islamist, the journalist spent many months back in his home country investigating the roots of the crime.
Trouble on the Bakersfield school board puts the lie to the idea that pluralism really has a future. We have lost, and we need to understand that and act accordingly.
Continue Reading »
An Iowa lawsuit has significance for us all. Continue Reading »
Among my first memories in this wondrous world were brittle palm fronds folded reverently behind the four crucifixes in our childhood home. Continue Reading »
The Council’s official statements join a list of human rights declarations by religious bodies, all of which conceive of dignity and rights in ways that differ from the standard Western versions. Continue Reading »
On this 240th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, our beloved country is badly in need of reform. Continue Reading »
On Evangelical hymns: Can I really sing about a relationship with the Lord that is so joyous that no other person has ever experienced it? Doesn’t this go beyond the bounds of hyperbolic spiritual enthusiasm? Continue Reading »
We appeal to other animals to help us arrive at self-understanding in these perplexing times. But we struggle to understand non-humans in a productive way. Therefore we cannot ultimately understand ourselves. Continue Reading »
Last weekend, Pope Francis made an apostolic journey to Armenia, a small, landlocked country of three million in the South Caucasus, bordering Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The official motto of his journey was “Visit to the First Christian Nation,” a reference to Armenia’s being the . . . . Continue Reading »
If we abandon the peculiarly modern quest for strict equality of treatment, it should be possible for the E.U. to function with its member states unevenly integrated into the whole. Great Britain could remain part of the E.U. while, fully in accordance with subsidiarity, claiming as much independence as it needs and can handle. Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
