R. R. Reno

Recently, I met a Wall Street trader. He was in his late thirties, perhaps his early forties. I was impressed by his active intelligence. We spoke of the current political situation and its odd combination of hysteria and complacency. Everybody seems to feel oppressed in some way. Many worry that . . . . Continue Reading »

I read The Age of Entitlement in one sitting, unable to put down Christopher Caldwell’s riveting account of the last fifty years of American politics and culture. After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the nation’s leaders embarked on a series of grand projects. A modern . . . . Continue Reading »

Our year-end campaign has exceeded our goals. Continue Reading »

In the last fifty years, most writing about modern Catholicism has treated Vatican II as the great watershed. According to the standard narrative, the Church before the Council was wedded to a stultifying scholasticism and sunk in soul-crushing authoritarianism. After the Council, a new spirit . . . . Continue Reading »

This is our 300th number, marking thirty years of publication. In early 1989, Richard John Neuhaus had no inkling that he was about to found First Things. A Lutheran pastor noted for his incisive religious and political commentaries, he was busy running the Center on Religion and Society. The Center . . . . Continue Reading »

First Things offers something unique: religiously informed reflection on public affairs. Continue Reading »

In this issue, Oren Cass explodes the false dichotomy between cultural questions and economic ones(“The Problem with the Culture Problem”). Nowhere is the falsity more evident than in the question that will define the coming decade: Should we emphasize consumption or work? Our answer will have . . . . Continue Reading »

Suicides among Americans aged ten to twenty-four increased by more than 50 percent between 2007 and 2017. The suicide rate for all ages rose by nearly 30 percent between 1999 and 2016. This is not an isolated trend. Life expectancy in the United States is falling, a shocking trend for a rich . . . . Continue Reading »

It would be dangerous to give the powerful gay lobby the weapons of anti-discrimination law. Continue Reading »

Last month I made a pilgrimage to St. Mary’s Church, the university church at Oxford, when I was visiting that ancient city of dreaming spires. Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer were tried and convicted there for Protestant heresy. But I did not have those men in mind. It was from the pulpit of St. . . . . Continue Reading »