Paul Griffiths is always wise: “religious reading requires the establishment of a particular set of relations between the reader and what is read. These are principally relations of reverence, delight, awe, and wonder, relations that, once established, lead to . . . close, repetitive kinds of reading . . . . The questioning of authority and the concern with preliminary issues of method and justification (intellectual attitudes and concerns typical of modernity) make the establishment of such relations almost impossible because of the endless deferral of commitment that such attitudes bring with them. Commitment to some body of works as an endlessly nourishing garden of delights is essential to religious reading; and authoritative direction as to which works are of the right sort is a necessary condition for religious engagement with them.”
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
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