In the latest edition of First Things , editor Joseph Bottum discusses the future of the magazine and hints at the changes to come . Along with a revamped and redesigned website, we will be adding a range of new content offerings. Today, we are pleased to announce the first of these new features . . . . Continue Reading »
A new series of biblical commentaries, The Church’s Bible , is an encouraging sign of the times. Headed up by Robert Wilken, this ambitious and handsomely produced series aims to gather portions of ancient and medieval commentaries and present them to contemporary readers in an accessible . . . . Continue Reading »
Today’s militant atheists claim that religion, Christianity in particular, has corrupted “everything.” Believers don’t think Christianity is the source of the world’s evil, but we are haunted by the sense that Christianity hasn’t done all that much good either.Paul . . . . Continue Reading »
In May 2008 a conference was held at the University of Chicago in honor of David Tracy, who had retired the year before after nearly forty years on the faculty. The accolades of colleagues and friends were abundant and well deserved. Tracy, a Catholic priest, was the first theologian at the . . . . Continue Reading »
So-called “cultural histories” are written with a general audience in mind. They are meant to be leisurely strolls in the park, not trips to the Amazon with a botanist. Observations of trees and plant life are made and distinctions noted with the goal of clarifying our aesthetic . . . . Continue Reading »
The new issue¯ First Things ’ contribution to the Spring¯has arrived at last: the first hints of new growth since the cold winter came upon us. More than hints, perhaps, for it is, in its way, as strong an issue as the magazine has ever published.There’s a new poem, for instance, . . . . Continue Reading »
Exploration into God is exploration into darkness, into the heart of darkness. Yes, to be sure, God is light. He is the light by which all light is light. In the words of the Psalm, “In your light we see light.” Yet great mystics of the Christian tradition speak of the darkness in which the light is known, a darkness inextricably connected to the cross. At the heart of darkness the hope of the world is dying on a cross, and the longest stride of soul is to see in this a strange glory. In John’s Gospel, the cross is the bridge from the first Passover on the way out of Egypt to the new Passover into glory. In his first chapter he writes, “We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” The cross is not the eclipse of that glory but its shining forth, its epiphany. In John’s account, the death of Jesus is placed on the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan, precisely the time when the Passover lambs were offered up in the temple in Jerusalem. Lest anyone miss the point, John draws the parallel unmistakably. The legs of Jesus are not broken, the soldier pierces his side and John writes, “For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘Not a bone of him shall be broken.’ And again another scripture says, ‘They shall look on him whom they have pierced.’” In the book of Exodus, God commands that no bone of the paschal lamb is to be broken. Then there is this magnificent passage from the prophet Zechariah: “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” Continue Reading »
If Alexis de Tocqueville was right in observing that the American nation insists upon “perpetual adoration of itself,” why have Americans been such devoted readers of Democracy in America for almost two centuries now? Maybe initially Americans mistook the title itself for praise: Surely the . . . . Continue Reading »
This article by Richard John Neuhaus, who passed away January 8, 2009 , was published in the August/September 2008 issue of First Things , and is reprinted below on the one-year anniversary of Pope Benedict’s visit. In saying that one must guard against superlatives in recounting Pope . . . . Continue Reading »
By many accounts the rise to prominence of institutions other than the church or the state marks the transition from the medieval to the modern era. Even so, it is true that many Protestant reformers considered the right balance of the relations between church and state to be of first importance in . . . . Continue Reading »
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