The fascinating J.L. Wall at THE LEAGUE OF ORDINARY GENTLEMEN notices that I invented the right term for the wonderful Marilynne Robinson. He adds that means that she’s neither a liberal nor a conservative. It does mean that she thinks everyone should work and everyone should be educated for leisure. She’s for equality without condescension based on the Christian insight, confirmed by what we know through science, that we all have inward lives and were made for more than mere survival. She’s more about education for civilization than education for freedom. She’s not so different from our other neo-Puritanical friend, the late and great Wilson Carey McWilliams.
When it comes to politics, both Marilynne and Carey are, well, too Puritanical. But the Puritanical heresy provides the balance that allows real personal content to seep into our other big Founding heresy of Lockean Deism.
From the perspective of the Midwestern Abolitionist educated at neo-Puritanical, antebellum Oberlin, Mr. Jefferson was sure soft of slavery, and even on the education of blacks and women for civilized freedom.
Carey, of course, begin his brilliant teaching career at Oberlin, which has gone downhill since it ceased to be genuinely Christian.
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.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
