What We’ve Been Reading—November 2021
by EditorsOur editors reflect on Czesław Miłosz, crime fiction, Roger Scruton, and the divine right of kings. Continue Reading »
A Good Word for Locke
by Richard J. MouwThe lecturer was setting forth a biblical perspective on the role of government, with special attention to the Pauline text in Romans 13. At one point he introduced a rhetorical flourish with a passing negative reference to John Locke. The Bible sees the authority to govern as coming from God—“and not,” the lecturer said, “from a human contract, as John Locke insisted.” Continue Reading »
Liberalism and the Church
by David T. KoyzisA liberal Christian may be able to affirm that Jesus literally walked on the water or rose from the dead, yet he still retains the right as an individual to accept only that which supports his own experience of faith. Continue Reading »
Natural Rights, The Imago Dei, and the Moral Economy of Sex
by Matthew J. FranckMary Ann Glendon wrote nearly a quarter century ago that “a new form of rights talk has come into being” in contemporary America, in which rights are “presented as absolute, individual, and independent of any necessary relation to our responsibilities. Continue Reading »
The Voracious Nought
by Peter LawlerI just got back from giving a lecture at a small liberal-arts college. The tenured professors were complaining. (That, after all, is allegedly what tenure gives professors the unlimited right to do). Their main complaint: Students are no longer doing the reading for “core texts” or . . . . Continue Reading »
The Coen Brothers’ TRUE GRIT and the Western
by Carl ScottThis week I am appropriately traveling to Hollywood, a town that owes its fortune to the Western more than to any other genre, for the Western Political Science Association meeting, where I will be presenting a paper titled “Cowboys and Corpses: The Moral Perils of the State of Nature in the . . . . Continue Reading »
In the Beginning Was the Word
by Joshua Mitchelllaunching liberalism: on lockean political philosophy by michael zuckert university press of kansas, 392 pages, $29.95 Paraphrasing the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was One. And the Word brought forth a world.” Can the words of man be equally univocal, and have . . . . Continue Reading »
America's most
influential
journal of
religion and
public life
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
influential
journal of
religion and
public life
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
Filter Tag Articles
Subscribe Today!
