“My youngest son and I just finished a road trip,” says Peter J. Leithart in today’s column . ”I think it was somewhere between Wisconsin and Minnesota that it began to dawn on me that . . . in, with, and under the teeming diversity, we are one country.”
Social conservatives make both a substantive and a strategic error if we write off our opponents as un-American. It muddies the issues to suppose that the country is divided between patriots and traitors. The emerging divisions are in some cases far more basic than that, and we won’t understand where the battle lines are if we fail to recognize that gay pride and pro-family activism both have deep roots in the same American soil. We’re all children of the founding adventurers, and, like it or not, we all bear the imprint of that youthful and quite wondrous form of humanity known as “American.”
Read the full column here .
Time is short, so I’ll be direct: FIRST THINGS needs you. And we need you by December 31 at 11:59 p.m., when the clock will strike zero. Give now at supportfirstthings.com.
First Things does not hesitate to call out what is bad. Today, there is much to call out. Yet our editors, authors, and readers like you share a greater purpose. And we are guided by a deeper, more enduring hope.
Your gift of $50, $100, or even $250 or more will bring this message of hope to many more people in the new year.
Make your gift now at supportfirstthings.com.
First Things needs you. I’m confident you’ll answer the call.
