Number 353
SUBSCRIBE TO

America’s Most Influential Journal of Religion and Public Life

1, 2, or 3-year subscription including unlimited web access to the current issue and the online issue archives. (Canada & International prices may vary)

SUBSCRIBE
Letters

Letters

Two delightful essays in the March issue, by Nikolas Prassas (“Large Language Poetry,” March 2025) and Gary…

Essays

How to Commemorate 1776

Walter A. McDougall

Next year is America’s 250th anniversary, and President Trump has promised us a “spectacular birthday party.” The…

Why Homeschool?

Brian Patrick Eha

My father used to quiz us at the kitchen table, my older brother and me, during dinner.…

Feminism Against Fertility

Darel E. Paul

When Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, the boys crowed and the girls cried. At least…

The Right Has Forgotten Feeling

Freya India

I'm not sure how I got here, into these pages. Lately I’ve found myself in a lot…

Opinion

Leave Joy Alone

Ephraim Radner

C S. Lewis has never been my favorite Christian writer. I admit this sheepishly, given his stature.…

How I Kicked My Phone Habit

Clement Harrold

About eighteen months ago, I decided I wanted a healthier relationship with my smartphone. My phone had…

Battle for Young Minds 

Liel Leibovitz

If you happened to tune in to America’s most popular podcasts these last few months, you might’ve…

Pure Episcopalianism

Joshua T. Katz

It was in June 2022 that my wife and I started looking for a home in Washington,…

America’s New Grand Strategy

R. R. Reno

After the Cold War, the United States could imagine that its military was all-­powerful. America seemed capable…

How Abortion Lost Its Cool

Carmel Richardson

Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential election victory shocked many. The deplorables won the day, the elites were disgraced,…

The Love Society and Its Enemies

R. R. Reno

Written by Karl Popper after he fled Austria in the late 1930s, The Open Society and Its…

While We’re At It

R. R. Reno

H. Richard Niebuhr taught at Yale Divinity School for many decades. In 1953, he made the following…

Reviews

Liberal ­Integralists

Vincent L. Strand, S.J.

Eight years ago, Andrew Willard Jones’s Before Church and State was described in these pages as “the…

Endless Shuffle

Dominic Green

”The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and…

Immaterial World

Stephen M. Barr

Spencer Klavan is a classicist who holds a ­doctorate in ancient Greek literature from Oxford University. Not…

Song of Thanksgiving 

Richard Bratby

On the cover of ­Nicholas Chong’s new book, The Catholic ­Beethoven, the skies are blue. That in…

Briefly Noted

A Grand Slam for God:A Journey from Baseball Star to Catholic Priestby burke masterword on fire, 192…

Poetry

Lift My Chin, Lord 

Jennifer Reeser

Lift my chin, Lord,Say to me,“You are not whoYou feared to be,Not Hecate, quite,With howling sound,Torch held…

Spring Twilight After Penance 

Sally Thomas

Let’s say you’ve just comeFrom confession. Late sunPours through the budding treesThat mark the brown creek washing Itself…

For an English Teacher 

Matthew Buckley Smith

You died, but it was not your words that faltered. You’d husbanded the language all your life, And when…