According to the conventional narrative, science and religion have been at war for some three hundred years. But the reality is deeper and more complex. The English philosopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote in his Science and the Modern World (1925) that without devotion to the God of Israel, modern . . . . Continue Reading »
Dear First Things Reader,“God loves a cheerful giver,” St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians. Over almost twenty years, the readers of First Things have demonstrated that they are generous givers, and I would like to think that you are cheerful givers as well.To be sure, this year is not like . . . . Continue Reading »
Avery Cardinal Dulles was one of the greatest thinkers in the modern Roman Catholic church and perhaps its most distinguished representative in the United States. The first American to be named a cardinal soley for his theological work, and for his last two decades a professor at Fordham University, . . . . Continue Reading »
The great contest is over the culture, the guiding ideas and habits of mind and heart that inform the way we understand the world and our place in it. Christians who, knowingly or unknowingly, embrace the model of “Christ without culture”—meaning Christianity in indifference to culture—are . . . . Continue Reading »
Word has reached us that Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., died here in New York early this morning. Created cardinal for his theological work by John Paul II, Avery Dulles was one of the great figures of the twentieth century: a theologian, an intellectual, a teacher, a writer, a lecturer, and a kind . . . . Continue Reading »
Politics is an arena of conflict. I want a certain set of policies and laws. You want something different. We fight it out in public debate and in the electoral process. Welcome to the rough-and-tumble world of sound bites, negative advertising, and hardball tactics.It’s wrong to wring our . . . . Continue Reading »
On November 4, 2008, the people of California¯in a 52 to 48 percent vote¯placed in the state’s constitution an amendment that reaffirmed that marriage consists of one man and one woman. The amendment, Proposition 8, overturned the California Supreme Court’s May 2008 ruling that . . . . Continue Reading »
William C. Placher was my undergraduate mentor at Wabash College and became my colleague when I returned to teach there. He died on November 30, 2008 at age sixty while on sabbatical at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical Research at St. John’s University in Minnesota. His beloved mother . . . . Continue Reading »
Dear First Things Reader,“God loves a cheerful giver,” St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians. Over almost twenty years, the readers of First Things have demonstrated that they are generous givers, and I would like to think that you are cheerful givers as well.To be sure, this year is not like . . . . Continue Reading »
In recent weeks, we’ve been reflecting on the “Christ and culture” question as classically framed by H. Richard Niebuhr.Recall the five ways of thinking about this: Christ against culture, the Christ of culture, Christ above culture, Christ and culture in paradox , and Christ . . . . Continue Reading »
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