A Diverse Communion of Believers

The First Things 2022 Spring Campaign seeks to raise $600,000 by June 30. To make your contribution, visit www.firstthings.com/donate.

What time is it in America? Permit me this playful assertion: It is, at the moment, 1964 or thereabouts, a moment of unrest and change. Crusty old norms are turning to dust, others are rushing to take their place, and the times, as a wise seeker once put it, they are a-changin’. But these days, the cultural upstarts aren’t kids with long hair and loud guitars; they’re mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers who are plugging back into tradition, into God and country and family and the other virtues that have always made America greatest.

Thankfully, First Things is here not only to record this uprising of hope, but also to help inspire and guide it. It’s why I’ve long been a passionate reader of the magazine, and why I was honored to join it last year as a columnist.

Under R. R. Reno’s leadership, First Things has achieved the very difficult distinction of bringing timeless truths into conversation with contemporary preoccupations without compromising either. With each volume, the magazine gives its readers an education in millennia of Christian teaching, while also equipping them with the wisdom they need to navigate their way in a world increasingly inimical to faith. To do so at all is a major undertaking; to do so with verve and grace, producing pieces that are not only illuminating but also great fun to read, is a small miracle.

As an observant Jew, I am immensely grateful to First Things for two generous gifts. First, for the education it gives me in the myriad ways America’s past, present, and future continue to be inseparably intertwined with our belief in a mighty God and our adherence to his teachings. And second, for the opportunity it gives us all to form a diverse communion of believers. Though we have dogmatic differences, we can unite in our conviction that religion should inform public life, and that restoring it to its place in America's public square is a godly mission—one that we cannot fulfill if we merely quibble in perpetual discontent.

It's precisely in this spirit, then, that I hope you’ll join us, because movements that redefine historical moments rarely do it unless they contain multitudes. That Catholic neighbor or Jewish friend or evangelical colleague who is a few Saturdays or Sundays removed from her last visit to synagogue or church is feeling adrift and could use a periodical invitation in her mailbox to reengage with her tradition. That kid about to enter college needs nothing more than some intellectual and moral shelter as his convictions are about to be assailed by a storm of moral relativism, identity politics, and pressure to exchange what’s right for what’s trendy. Give to First Things today to accelerate spiritual growth, build community, and renew the everlasting covenant that is America.