’Tis the season to be jolly. ’Tis also the season for me to ask for your financial support! Our mission is important. Our need is great. First Things magazine and firstthings.com are published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, a 503(c)(b) non-profit that depends on people like you for donations.
If you’re a print subscriber to First Things , a letter is in the mail asking for your support. I hope you respond generously. If you’re a Kindle or Ipad or Nook (now available) subscriber—and if you’re a regular visitor to this website—we don’t have your mailing address. Which is why I’m writing you now.
We need your support in order to remain a vital voice for faith. This is more important today than ever. We’re in the way of a theological and spiritual diminution of God’s authority in the religious life. We’re in the way of our culture’s intense desire to wiggle away from robust moral truths. We’re in the way of complacent don’t-all-good-people-think-the-way-we-do political correctness. We’re in the way of abortion-on-demand, euthanasia, and doctor-assisted suicide. We’re in the way of redefining marriage and the family. We’re in the way of an expanding market for surrogate mothers, new reproductive technologies, and the larger trend of separating sex from reproduction. We’re in the way of a great deal of what cultural progressives imagine, wrongly, as progress. And we will be pressured to get out of the way. Indeed, if we’re not clear and articulate about what we stand for, we’ll be pushed out of the way because we’ll lack the substance to stand our ground.
Please give careful thought to making a donation. What you read in the magazine and on the website is unique. We publish religious voices engaging theological, literary, cultural, and political issues in a reflective way. With your donation you’ll be supporting important work that gives us the substance. That’s a precious thing today.
We’re only as strong as are you, the community of readers. You put ideas, arguments, and insights into action. You bring faith into the public square. $10, $100, $1,000, $10,000. We’re blessed to have people like you who give what they can to sustain our work. That support is indispensible. More than half of the First Things budget is covered by donation.
You can give online if you’d like. We’re also happy to receive old-fashioned checks at our office ( First Things , 35 East 21st Street, Sixth Floor, New York, New York, 10010). If you’d like, I’ll send you information about the Editor’s Circle, our club of supporters who give $1,000 or more. If there’s any way I can smooth the way, zip me an email: reno@firstthings.com .
Please give generously.
R.R. Reno is editor of First Things . He is the general editor of the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible and author of the volume on Genesis . His previous “On the Square” articles can be found here .
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You have a decision to make: double or nothing.
For this week only, a generous supporter has offered to fully match all new and increased donations to First Things up to $60,000.
In other words, your gift of $50 unlocks $100 for First Things, your gift of $100 unlocks $200, and so on, up to a total of $120,000. But if you don’t give, nothing.
So what will it be, dear reader: double, or nothing?
Make your year-end gift go twice as far for First Things by giving now.
