First Thoughts

First Links — 12.11.15

C. S. Lewis Was a Secret Government Agent
Harry Lee Poe, Christianity Today

Preserving the City of Tomorrow
Steven W. Semes, New Criterion

Movable Feasts:
A Farmer-Philosopher Confounds Expectations about Islam and Outsiders in the South
Staff, Economist

Father Mourad: Defeating ISIS Within a Cell of Prayer
Arthur Herlin, Aleteia

Grace Notes
Rowan Williams, Literary Review

Medication Nation
Philip Alcabes, American Scholar

Charlotte Brontë’s Most Inexplicable Denominational Burns
Mallory Ortberg, Toast

The Alarming Summons of Advent
Laura Trimble, Humane Pursuits

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

Last year I posted in this space a reading plan of my own devising for working through all of Shakespeare's works. I made some work for myself when I created this plan, because I settled on reading plays Monday through Friday, and sonnets and other poems on weekends. Thus it needs annual . . . . Continue Reading »

Announcing the Tradition Project

Here is an item about a new research project that will interest many First Things readers. As reported in this story, the Center for Law and Religion at St. John’s University School of Law has received a major grant from the Bradley Foundation to launch the Tradition Project, a new, . . . . Continue Reading »

Refugees in Germany: A Firsthand Report

The following four letters regarding the situation of refugees in Germany were sent from a German observer to a curious American. They are re-printed here with the permission of the correspondents.September 11, 2015Dear American Friend: Thank you for asking about the mounting waves of refugees in . . . . Continue Reading »

Is There a Crisis in Conservative Protestantism?

If Ross Douthat is right about a crisis in conservative Catholicism, what is the equivalent in conservative Protestantism?  A lethal cocktail of sharp practice, kitsch, and superficiality, perhaps?
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Christians, the State Department, and Genocide

How is it acceptable to tell religious minorities that things are comparatively good for them because they can “choose” to accept oppressive and demeaning treatment and manage to survive? Continue Reading »

Rights Talk, Majority Tyranny, and the Harms We “See”

Continuing arguments over gun rights and violence brought to mind Tocqueville’s observation that he knew “no country where there prevails, in general, less independence of mind and less true freedom of discussion than in America.” This, for Tocqueville, occurred because “In America, the . . . . Continue Reading »

On Posner's Wards

Richard Posner, a judge of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in a New York Times op-ed co-authored December 2 with Law Professor Eric Segall, takes Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to task for threatening America with a “majoritarian theocracy” because of his repeated . . . . Continue Reading »

Marriage and Poverty—The New Consensus

Left and right agree—the breakdown of marriage destroys the poor. Continue Reading »

Prayer at Winter Solstice

Our contributor and next years' honoree for the Annual Poetry Reading, Dana Gioia, was just named California's Poet Laureate. Here's an illustration of why:Prayer at Winter SolsticeBlessed is the road that keeps us homeless. Blessed is the mountain that blocks our way.Blessed are hunger . . . . Continue Reading »