The wind has shifted. People want hard religion, not easy religion. They seek out communities that are demanding rather than permissive. They want truth-based theologies, not outlooks softened with talk of “meaning” and “welcome.” Dialogue, a buzzword for the Baby Boomers, is out. Emphasis falls on conviction and commitment.
Twenty years ago, while teaching theology at Creighton University, I had an experience that foretold this shift. I offered a course on apologetics: “Defending the Christian Faith.” We covered Thomas Aquinas’s presentation of the five arguments for the existence of God and John Henry Newman’s luminous sermons on faith and reason. I added a long chapter on Christology found in Karl Rahner’s Foundations of Christian Faith, an influential book in the years after Vatican II.
Rahner begins by arguing that the modern scientific view of evolution, when interpreted philosophically, leads to the expectation of the incarnation of the divine in material reality. He then shifts gears. In a longer section, he outlines what he calls “transcendental Christology.” Rahner uses his distinctive philosophical vocabulary to argue that any person who reflects on his condition as an embodied person with transcendent longings will arrive at the expectation that the divine will be present in the concrete life of a living person.
The ambition is striking. Rahner claims to show that the world, scientifically understood, suggests the concept of incarnation. Individual self-reflection points to the same conclusion. In a word, the external world and our inner lives lead to Christ.
Truth be told, most of my students got lost in the byways of Rahner’s tortuous prose. They hoped I would clarify the assignment or at least tell them what they had to know for the final exam. But one of my best students followed the arguments and rejected them outright. After class, he told me with disgust, “Why bother with this nonsense? It’s neither what science says, nor what Christianity teaches.” He was right, especially about Christianity. To say that Rahner finesses the question of Jesus’s bodily resurrection would be generous.
The young man was a biology major. He had little interest in entertaining a “dialogue” between science and Christian doctrine, at least not at that stage in his life. He wanted to know what Christianity taught in its fullness, not how doctrine could be stage-managed toward something more easily believed. He knew himself to be a person of intelligence who could take responsibility for saying yes or no. He felt cheated by Rahner, who had denied him the difficulty of Christian belief, removing the scandal and stumbling blocks.
This student’s dismissal of Rahner was based on a correct intuition. Faith is in a certain sense heroic. Infused from above, it reaches beyond man’s natural capacities. Through faith, man seeks to attain the supernatural—and does so in an anticipatory fashion. Faith and reason are not opposed, but the former is fired by an ardency and sometimes a reckless ambition that the latter lacks. Newman made this point with characteristic eloquence: “Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.” Kierkegaard spoke of “the leap of faith.” To accept as true that which God has revealed is a bold venture of the intellect, not running counter to reason, but abandoning its cautious counsel and demands for proof.
The desire for heroic faith is rising. This increase in the demand for strong religion confounds most Baby Boomers. They came of age during a time when clergy sought “relevance.” In the 1950s, Paul Tillich reframed the gospel promise. Instead of forgiveness, which implies both our own guilt and God’s justice in punishing us, God offers acceptance. Catholicism after Vatican II sought to make Christianity more accessible, more “contemporary,” so that one need not leap, or if a leap is necessary, at least not too far.
At present, young people find such accommodations disappointing, as did my student. One reason the Latin Mass appeals is that its archaic language and elaborate rituals convey something distant, shrouded in mystery. Faith inaugurates a long, arduous journey to a remote destination, a journey that will require our every strength. Rigor does not dismay or discourage. It motivates and inspires.
Moreover, in the Latin Mass, space is clearly demarcated. An altar rail protects the sacred from violation—and it protects the profane from exposure to the burning flames of holiness. “Woe is me,” says the prophet Isaiah, “for I am a man of unclean lips.” Sacred objects are handled with care. These practices inculcate reverence; more importantly, they remind us that God is frightful. When the angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds, they were “sore afraid,” as the old translation puts it. They must be reassured: “Be not afraid.” But we cannot receive that good counsel if we never entertain the truth that we have very good reasons to fear God’s presence.
A transcendent and demanding approach to faith does not require the liturgy in Latin. Conservative Protestantism emphasizes demanding belief. Decades ago, when I first visited a conservative Protestant congregation, I was struck by the fact that adults attended a one-hour class before church services. They studied a Bible passage together, and the pastor’s presentation was theologically rigorous. The message conveyed was clear: If you are serious about your faith, you must immerse yourself in the truths of the faith, which are found in scripture. And this immersion is not an exploration of how you “feel.” It’s an intellectually rigorous enterprise.
Around the same time, I read Hans Urs von Balthasar’s youthful manifesto, Razing the Bastions. Writing in the 1950s, Balthasar calls for the church to forsake her fortress mentality, throw open her doors, and bring the yeast of the gospel to the world. It’s an inspiring book, written with Balthasar’s characteristic brio. His vision is theologically correct. Christ calls us to be salt and light. But even then, years ago, I sensed a certain naiveté. Tearing down the walls that separate the church from the world risks weakening Christianity’s defenses against the world’s seductions. It also removes the outward signs of the church’s difference from the world, bleaching out the gospel’s supernatural claim upon our lives.
Last fall, Balthasar’s book came up in a conversation. A friend was upset by what he took to be the sectarian turn taken by many young people. They seem more interested in traditional rituals and the older scholastic theology than in contemporary forms and ideas. My friend reiterated Balthasar’s winsome rhetoric, saying, “Our vocation is to sanctify the world!” True, I replied, “But many young people recognize that perhaps our first task is to re-sanctify the church. We cannot give the world what we do not have.” He made reference to Razing the Bastions. “Yes, a wonderful book,” I acknowledged. I went on to note that if there’s a young theologian working today who is as passionate and brilliant as Hans Urs von Balthasar was, he’s likely to pen a new manifesto: Raising the Bastions.
Kneeling to receive the consecrated host, adopting traditional rites and religious symbols, studying St. Thomas, delving into finely argued Calvinistic debates, homeschooling your children, forming intentional communities—these are among the many signs of the return to strong religion. Raising the bastions will be marked by excesses and distortions, as was the project of razing them. But it’s what our age needs. The program outlined by Balthasar some eighty years ago served the needs of his time. Ours are different. There is a time to reap and a time to sow.
Postliberalism, Again
Many friends worry about the future of liberalism. They often challenge me: Do my sympathies for postliberalism, populism, and national conservatism mean that I reject liberalism? I understand their concerns. To my mind, however, it’s not useful to talk about being “for” or “against” liberalism.
In the first place, liberalism is an open-ended and disputed concept. Historically, it has ascribed great importance to individual freedom. But how are we to honor freedom? One tradition of liberalism, often dubbed “classical liberalism,” emphasizes the protection of liberty. Our First Amendment offers an example. The enumerated rights fend off the power of the state. They guard freedom against the power of democratic majorities, which, if unrestrained, can become oppressive.
There’s another side to liberalism, one that seeks to nurture and expand freedom. This liberalism, often called “modern liberalism,” prizes equality and seeks empowerment. These goals led to the provision of universal education, as well as the expansion of the franchise, first to all adult males, then to women. Modern liberals erected the welfare state, guided by the conviction that legally protected liberties are dead letters if one is in bondage to poverty.
These two factions often fall upon each other with accusations of having betrayed “true liberalism.” This internal dispute makes me rather skeptical when I face similar accusations.
Divisions within liberalism are evident also when we consider scholarly debates. In my estimation, Thomas Hobbes played a central role in the history of liberalism. He theorized the social contract that is made in the state of nature—the primordial situation in which, he argued, any reasonable person would freely consent to the limitation of his freedom. But I can report that there are legions of political philosophers who will insist that Hobbes theorized totalitarianism, not liberalism. The same accusation is hurled at Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who conceived of freedom as self-loyalty, an extraordinarily influential concept in the history of liberalism.
In view of these debates, which characterize the scholarship of liberalism, its theoretical expressions, and its practical applications, what sense does it make to say that my support for national conservatism and other postliberal notions amounts to a betrayal of liberalism?
There’s another reason why I’m increasingly indifferent to accusations that I am entertaining forbidden, illiberal thoughts. Liberalism—classical, modern, and everything in between—has played a central role in American history. Even the antebellum South resorted to the rhetoric of freedom to justify its slave economy. John C. Calhoun penned a political treatise that warned against the tyranny of the majority, a threat of great concern for the Founders. As I’ve observed on many occasions, far from being “illiberal,” because liberalism is so deeply woven into our history, nationalism in the American context can’t be anything less than liberal.
But these observations rarely satisfy. Today’s defenders of liberalism seem to believe that any sentiment, conviction, or political program that cannot be deduced from or justified by liberal principles (however they define them) amounts to a betrayal of liberalism. On this view, liberalism is the sole and sufficient foundation for a just society.
Standalone liberalism results in a very strange view of public life. Consider the first duty of the sovereign: to preserve the realm. I can think of no liberal principle, classical or modern, that justifies such a duty. Today’s debates about immigration and borders turn on this venerable imperative. I don’t see how the great liberal theorist John Rawls could have found a reason to distinguish between citizens and non-citizens, at least not in his great work, A Theory of Justice. The same holds for his libertarian adversary, Robert Nozick.
There are other political imperatives that fall outside the scope of liberalism. From time immemorial, regimes have sought to promote marriage and religion. These are not liberal ambitions. More generally, the imperative of solidarity, however understood, falls outside the scope of liberalism. In many instances, efforts to promote solidarity run counter to liberal ideals. Although a Fourth of July parade is in many respects a celebration of liberalism, there’s nothing in liberalism that endorses grand expressions of collective loyalty. Indeed, I can well imagine John Stuart Mill warning us about the subtle coercive effect, the insidious tyranny of a social consensus.
The Gettysburg Address provides a case study in the enduring and beneficent mixture of liberal and non-liberal elements in the American experience. Lincoln opens with a powerful affirmation of liberalism, evoking our founding: “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The Civil War, then ongoing, marked a test. Could this liberal nation, or any other liberal nation, long endure? Lincoln ends with a call for resolve: “that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” As I noted recently (“A New Fusionism,” February 2025), the shall-not-perish imperative is not liberal. It partakes of the same non-liberal spirt as the sovereign’s duty to preserve the realm.
Lincoln was articulating a paradox. Securing the triumph of liberalism (or any other political ideal) requires dedication and devotion, sentiments that are not inspired by liberalism. In truth, liberalism acts to moderate or even undermine dedication, for it urges us to test our devotion and ensure that it does not enslave us or otherwise require us to abandon our freedom—or deny another’s freedom. It was Lincoln’s dedication to preserving the Union that led him to suspend habeas corpus during the Civil War, an act fundamentally at odds with any principled liberalism. Yet history judges him a great man, and wisely so, for the life of a nation is made up of more than liberalism.
JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in February offers a more recent example of the combination of liberal and non-liberal imperatives in public life. Vance scolded European leaders for their suppression of free speech and religious freedom—concerns that reflect America’s liberal principles. Then he pivoted to an exhortation: European elites should forego their efforts to suppress populist political parties. Vance warned that the challenges facing the West in the coming years will require a “democratic mandate.” He was saying, in effect, that a strong national consensus will be needed to honor the shall-not-perish imperative. Our age requires not just freedom, but solidarity.
Those who voted for Donald Trump manifested the same tension. Many were fed up with the DEI regime that censors speech and hunts down political heretics. These voters resented pandemic lockdowns and were exasperated by do-gooders who tell them what kinds of drinking straws they can use. In effect, these voters elected Donald Trump to reestablish the liberal civic culture of earlier decades. At the same time, they thrilled to Trump’s nationalistic bravado. “Make America Great Again” is a slogan that promises to renew collective pride. It also suggests a turn away from celebrations of the marginal “other” and toward honoring the collective “we.” These are not liberal promises or suggestions. Again, the call was for freedom, yes, but also for solidarity.
In 1941, Leo Strauss gave a talk titled “German Nihilism” at the New School in New York. He probed the sources of political extremism, which had overthrown liberal moderation in Germany. With his characteristic nuance and indirection, Strauss suggested that German culture could not sustain a fruitful tension between modern liberal principles and the older, non-liberal ideals of the classical and pre-modern West. He ended his talk by praising English culture, which, while giving birth to liberalism, continued to educate its elites in “the classical ideal of humanity.” His message was subtle but clear: The preservation of liberalism requires something deeper, more demanding, and more heroic than liberalism.
I agree with Strauss. And I share his concern about the tendency of liberalism to discredit and suppress non-liberal loves and loyalties. For the last few years, I have been warning that we live in a time of disintegration (“Our Problem Is Disintegration,” November 2024). We face a crisis of solidarity (“Crisis of Solidarity,” November 2015). This does not mean that there are not also threats to liberalism. We should be grateful for the First Amendment. Rather, my point is this: The most pressing challenges of the twenty-first century cannot be addressed by intensifying our commitment to liberal principles. Addressing the decline in solidarity, the disintegration of fundamental bonds such as marriage, and the growing distrust of elite leadership will require non-liberal policies, non-liberal principles, and non-liberal sentiments.
Liberalism became superordinate in the decades after World War II, giving rise to an impossible liberalism-alone vision of the West. (For the story of that ascendancy, see my book Return of the Strong Gods.) Liberalism’s ideological dominance has suppressed the non-liberal elements of public life, which are essential for the health of the body politic. To be postliberal (at least in my use of the term) means rejecting standalone liberalism. At this moment in history, we need to nurture solidarity, promote marriage and religion, and pursue other non-liberal goals that require love and loyalty rather than rights and liberties.
Ukraine
Representatives of the U.S. and Russian governments are meeting in Saudi Arabia as I write. Their goal is to determine whether an agreement can be reached to end the war in Ukraine. I’m grateful that this effort is being made.
Two years ago, I expressed skepticism of the American and European governments’ claim that, with enough support, Ukraine could defeat the invading Russian army and reclaim all its territory (“Peace in Ukraine,” April 2023). I observed that, if my suspicions were true, then just war theory counseled negotiations to bring an end to hostilities.
The just war tradition requires us to determine just cause, but it also asks us to ponder the probability of success, among other criteria. At that time, I wrote, “It may be gallant to fight what one knows is a losing battle, but according to just war teaching, doing so reflects pagan vanity, not Christian moral judgment. A wise leader does not embark on unrealistic enterprises, especially when lives are at stake.”
The last two years have vindicated my skepticism. Soon after I wrote my column in 2023, the press hyped a Ukrainian counter-offensive. It failed. The Ukrainian and Russian armies remained locked in a grinding war of attrition. Through it all, the Biden administration maintained the official stance of supporting a Ukrainian victory, which was defined as reclaiming all lost territory. Again, this sounds high-minded and gallant. But one does not occupy the moral high ground by sacrificing the lives of soldiers in pursuit of unrealistic objectives. Biden officials have admitted that they did not believe the Ukrainians could triumph, even as their official stance suggested they did.
The Trump administration has changed course. The president has determined that the Ukrainians cannot defeat Russia’s army. In light of this judgment, Trump is pursuing the normal means by which inconclusive conflicts are resolved: negotiated compromise. His motive may be to secure the best outcome for America’s interests, rather than attaining a moral end. But the effect is similar: cessation of hostilities when there is little probability of resolution on the battlefield.
Many commentators insist that Ukraine could have prevailed—if the Biden administration had had greater resolve and been willing to provide more advanced weapons and other supplies. They insist that Trump is betraying Ukraine, because he, too, could ensure victory, if only he would commit the full might of American power to the cause.
I don’t wish to debate weapons systems. Rather, I want to draw attention to political realities. As Vance indicated in his speech at the Munich Security Conference, European leaders lack a democratic mandate. They certainly lack a mandate to intensify their involvement in Ukraine. In the United States, Trump won in part because he promised that, far from increasing U.S. involvement in Ukraine, he would end the war.
Assessing the probability of success requires more than measuring military throw weight. War is undertaken by nations. Indeed, it is a maker and breaker of nations. It is a foolish leader who ventures more than his followers will support. Biden was not foolish in this regard, nor are the present array of European heads of state, many of whom rushed to denounce Trump’s negotiations with Putin, but none of whom is willing (or able) to commit to military involvement. Their citizens do not want it, and they lack the means. (A retired British general reports that the UK can field only one battle-ready armored brigade.)
Critics are sure to announce that Trump has “handed Putin a victory.” They’re already doing so. This is absurd. Putin won a victory, however partial and costly. To think otherwise requires self-delusion. The United States does not have the means to deny Putin his victory. This is a political assessment, not a statement about how many cruise missiles we could launch at Moscow.
So, I return to the moral principles of just war. Among them is the following: It is immoral to unleash the violence of war when objectives cannot be achieved, however just those objectives may be. The Ukrainian army is unable to bring an end to hostilities by achieving victory. The nations of the West are unwilling to enter the fray with sufficient force and commitment. These seem to be indisputable facts. Moral reasoning must reckon with realities. Trump’s thinking is far removed from reflection on just war theory. But he is acknowledging reality and taking the steps necessary to put an end to a war that cannot be won. No doubt many mothers and fathers whose sons have died in the last two years of fruitless combat may have wished that the negotiations in Saudi Arabia had taken place in 2023.
While We’re At It
♦ We often imagine that nihilism demoralizes, inducing a sense of meaninglessness. This is not always the case. In his poetic presentation of Epicurean philosophy, On the Nature of Things, Lucretius promises that a pointless and purposeless materialism will lead to calm and peace of mind. Joseph Conrad seems to have taken the same view. In a letter to a friend, he wrote, “When once the truth is grasped that one’s own personality is only a ridiculous and aimless masquerade of something hopelessly unknown the attainment of serenity is not very far off.” The idea is simple: If there’s nothing worth worrying about, then there’s no reason to worry. If there’s no purpose to life, then one is free to get on with simply living.
♦ I was recently a guest on the Art of Darkness podcast, a series that treats great authors (artofdarkpod.com). Our topic was Conrad. The hosts asked me whether Conrad’s novels convey a message or point of view. There are common themes, I replied, but it is futile to try to determine Conrad’s views. He was a great mystifier of his own life—as much, perhaps, to himself as to others.
♦ One persistent theme in Conrad’s novels is the fragility of personal identity (“a ridiculous and aimless masquerade of something hopelessly unknown”). Conrad shared with Emile Durkheim the concern that inner convictions and solid self-conceptions can wobble, even collapse. Writing in the 1890s, the French sociologist observed that modern society suffers from “a morbid disturbance which, while able to uproot the institutions of the past, has put nothing in their place; for the work of centuries cannot be remade in a few years.”
♦ If you are interested in my reading of Conrad’s great novel Lord Jim, take a look at my essay in Azure (Spring 2011): “Joseph Conrad’s Play of Light and Shadow.”
♦ A friend made an interesting observation about populism, which is driven by a growing dissatisfaction with liquid modernity and a world without borders: “We have no standing in society if we have no place to stand.” I replied, “Life in Christ gives us a place to stand.”
♦ On February 13, the New York Times ran an opinion piece by Oren Cass. He notes an interesting parallel between the captivities of the Democratic and Republican parties:
Special-interest pressure campaigns have been associated in recent years with “the groups,” as they are often called, activists that have pushed the Democratic Party far to the left of the typical voter on issues such as immigration, race, gender identity and climate change. But the Republican Party has its own special-interest groups—mirror images of the progressive ones, equally destructive of both its popularity and its prospects for getting anything done.
Alongside the Club for Growth, such groups as Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform and the Koch Network’s Americans for Prosperity have made it their mission to cut taxes continuously, regardless of what most voters prioritize or the federal budget can bear.
They preach tax cuts with the same desperate zeal as climate activists demanding a near-total elimination of carbon emissions. They oppose tax increases, no matter how large the deficit, with the same determination that open-borders advocates oppose any effort to restrict immigration. They insist that tax cuts spurred the late 1990s economic boom, although Bill Clinton raised taxes; that George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 paid for themselves, although tax revenues fell sharply; that Mr. Trump’s tax cuts in 2017 propelled growth, although growth slowed. They accuse anyone who suggests a need for more tax revenue of betraying conservatism—never mind that Ronald Reagan raised taxes repeatedly.
♦ Conservative revolution—that’s an oxymoron. Authoritarian liberalism—another oxymoron. It’s a sign of the times that both are political and cultural realities.
♦ Sketch of an Aristotelian argument for the First Amendment:
Man is a religious animal → religious freedom.
Man is a social animal → freedom of association.
Man is a political animal → freedom of the press.
Man is a rational animal → free speech.
♦ John Rawls and liberalism share a dream not unlike that of Karl Marx and communism: the end of politics and of battles over what Rawls called comprehensive doctrines, allowing us to turn to the scientific management of utilities.
♦ David Mamet: “Our lives, yours and mine, are full of sanctimony; in fact, a grand tool of self-diagnosis is recognition of the warm joy we take in sententiousness, and its big brother, righteousness.”
♦ I mention Leo Strauss above. I remember reading in college one of his famous essays, “Persecution and the Art of Writing.” Strauss argues that the conventional pressures of traditional society forced the great writers of the Western tradition to disguise their true intentions. It made sense to me. To seek transcendence draws one away from the conventional. As Jesus tells Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.” That’s a dangerous sentiment, unsettling to those in power, which is why Strauss thought that the strongest insights to be found in classical works of philosophy were communicated by indirection.
Strauss lived and wrote in liberal America. So, as a young person, I thought he was exempt from the pressure to keep his most important ideas and aims hidden. Only lately have I come to realize my naiveté. Strauss sought to educate aristocrats of the soul for leadership in modern democratic America, latter-day Platonic guardians. Our egalitarian ideology is hostile to such a project. As I have noted, liberalism-alone censors the non-liberal loves and loyalties that drive us toward excellences of the soul. Working in postwar America, which was increasingly doctrinaire in its liberalism-alone, Strauss could not articulate his program explicitly. He encoded it in recondite readings of the history of political philosophy, and he pursued it with his students in the privacy of the seminar room.
♦ In our most recent issue (March 2025), we published a fine poem, “Letter to a Middle-Aged Poet.” I’m proud of our high standards. But I’m ashamed to report that we made a mistake. We wrongly attributed to poem to David Middleton. The correct author is Matthew Buckley Smith. I apologize to both men for this error.
♦ Dennis Floyd established the ROFTers group in Denver more than twenty years ago. In doing so, he provided the impetus for the entire ROFTers movement. In 2001, Dennis’s brother convinced him to subscribe to First Things. An engineer by training, Dennis thought that conversation with others would help him understand our theological and philosophical articles. Here’s how he tells the story:
So, in May of 2003, I emailed Vince Druding, Editorial Assistant at First Things, asking if he could supply me with contact information for subscribers in the Denver area. He replied on May 18 that privacy laws prevented him from doing that but promised to raise the matter with the editors to see if an alternative could be developed.
He wrote again on May 21, this time including another reader who had expressed a similar interest, to say that the editorial board liked the idea and requesting that we “submit a letter expressing formally this request and the ideas you have for it, including contact information that you would not mind being printed in the magazine.”
I did this immediately and on June 16 received an email reply from James Nuechterlein, then-editor of First Things, thanking me for my interest in “organizing a First Things discussion group in the Denver area.” He stated that they would announce in the August/September issue that First Things would provide “contact data for people like you who are willing to take the initiative in organizing FT groups in particular areas.” That information would be published in the October issue
This was done. In his “While We’re At It” section of the August/September issue Fr. Neuhaus wrote, “If you’re interested in convening ROFTERS (Readers of First Things) who want to discuss articles appearing in the Journal, drop us a letter explaining what you have in mind. We will then post in this section the names and addresses of conveners, and subscribers who are interested in being a part of such groups can get in touch with them. Our lawyers insist that we say such groups are not officially sponsored by FT; we are only helping facilitate such groups at the request of readers. Let’s see how this works out.”
It worked out very well! In the October issue my contact information was published, along with that of four other prospective conveners (Robert Caffrey, Annapolis, MD; Rev. Michael Gilligan, So. Chicago; Chris Saxman, Stauton, MD; and M.J. Christiensen, Deland, FL) Nine more conveners were listed in the November issue, three more in December, and by April, 2004 some 45 conveners had surfaced. Eventually over 100 conveners were identified in the U.S., Canada, and various locales around the world.
Dennis continues to convene the Denver group. I’ve visited the group several times, always refreshed by the good fellowship and reminded of how lucky we are to have such smart and engaged readers.
♦ Dennis also takes issue (gently) with my characterization of the appeal of joining a ROFTers group. Here’s what he wrote in the same missive that gave the account of the movement’s origin:
Even 22 years after the inception of Rofters, new conveners are often identified in each monthly issue of the journal. In the February 2025 issue, for example, editor Reno introduced still another prospective convener (Darrel Darby of Charleston, SC). In doing so, Dr. Reno stated, “If you want to meet smart, like-minded people who are not averse to arguing about theology, culture, and the meaning of life, get in touch with him.”
Dr. Reno does not capture the essence of our Rofters group with these words. I would say that if you want to engage in fruitful, interesting discussions about current important cultural, philosophical, and theological topics, join a local Rofters group. What you will find is that you will get to know some of the most wonderful people in your life and treasure their presence, friendship, and insights immensely.
Take Dennis’s words to heart. First Things is more than a world of ideas. It’s a fellowship of persons.
♦ We have many readers hoping to form ROFTers groups. Please contact them if you’d like to meet monthly to discuss the most recent issue of First Things.
- Keith Duff of Aurora, Illinois: keith.duff@villagebible.org
- Willy Dillingham of Carrington, North Dakota: wsd1776@gmail.com
- John Lynn Gullickson of Las Vegas, Nevada: Johnlynngulickson@hotmail.com
- Rene Nevarez of El Paso, Texas: nevarez77@sbcglobal.net
- Luke Heibel of Fayetteville, North Carolina: lgheibel@yahoo.com
Two existing ROFTers groups are seeking new members. Drop the group leader a note to find out when and where to meet.
- David Simpson of Beaufort, South Carolina: dlsimpsonjr@gmail.com
- John Trecker of Kansas City, Kansas: jttrecker@gmail.com
♦ For the annual First Things Chicago Conversation, I’ll sit down with Anna Moreland to talk about why things are so broken for young people—and what we can do to make some repairs. “Cultivating Virtue in the Age of TikTok” will take place at the Athenaeum Center on the north side of Chicago. To register for the event, visit firstthings.com/events. I look forward to seeing you there.
♦ Save the date for our annual Intellectual Retreat in New York City, beginning with dinner and a lecture on Friday, August 8 and continuing with a day of seminars and discussion on Saturday, August 9. This year’s theme: faith in the age of technology.
