The most recent number of The Intercollegiate Review, published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, features a symposium marking the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. Has it really been that long?Bloom’s book was a real sensation . . . . Continue Reading »
Earlier this month, as it has for many centuries, the Armenian Church commemorated the Feast of St. Vartan and His Companions. Although the feast is virtually unknown to other Christians, it serves as a reminder of the long and often bloody history of their co-religionists in the Middle East.If . . . . Continue Reading »
Whatever the merits or demerits of Craig Raine’s new biography, T.S. Eliot , and Terry Eagleton thinks the latter far outweigh the former , it does raise once again the question of Eliot’s alleged misogyny and anti-Semitism. Eagleton thinks that question is settled, and not in . . . . Continue Reading »
"We came very close to separation," said Archbishop Gregory Venables of this weekend’s meeting of global Anglican leaders, "but Biblical doctrine and behavior have been affirmed as the norms in the Anglican Church."It could have gone the other way, and for a time it looked . . . . Continue Reading »
No theologian working inside the traditions of western Christianity was more sensitive to the rhythms of the Church’s liturgical year than was John Henry Newman. Which, of course, stands to reason, given the fact that, as an Anglican curate at St. Clement’s in Oxford and later as vicar . . . . Continue Reading »
One detects in some quarters a sense of inevitability about momentous changes in the ordering¯or disordering, as the case may be¯of society. Forty years, one may be inclined to think, is not a long time in the history of a culture and its foundational institutions. Forty years ago in the . . . . Continue Reading »
As we approach George Washington’s birthday¯so often lost these days in the good shopping bargains of a long holiday weekend¯it seems fitting to celebrate the whole man Washington was in light of the hottest issue in the world just now, religion. Most historians of the last hundred years have . . . . Continue Reading »
The March issue of First Things is now available¯at newsstands and here, online, for subscribers.Look, I think every issue we put out is great. Truly great. Documents for the ages that ought, were the world rightly ordered, to be inscribed in stone for ages to contemplate in awe. Or, maybe, . . . . Continue Reading »
“I fear schism," Rowan Williams told the BBC , and with good reason. Today the annual meeting of the Anglican Communion officially begins in Tanzania, and it is not at all clear that the communion will last the week. No fewer than thirty-seven Anglican archbishops have assembled at a . . . . Continue Reading »
"Are atheists discriminated against in America?" That’s the question a CNN journalist recently asked me during an interview for the Paula Zahn NOW show. I must confess that, at first, I wasn’t sure how to answer, never having considered the question.In my twelve years at a . . . . Continue Reading »