I haven’t figured out whether I agree or not with Robert Miller on the prevalence of genuine relativism . He is certainly right that there are almost no consistent relativists out there. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to be an absolutely consistent relativist, as it almost . . . . Continue Reading »
"Peace is a communist plot," Irving Kristol used to observe back during the Cold War. The line was one of his typically brilliant and overstated ways of focusing attention on a insufficiently noted fact¯in this case, the fact that nearly every organization with the word peace in its . . . . Continue Reading »
As I wrote in this space last week (see here and here ), many Catholic thinkers tend to dismiss as "relativists" anyone who disagrees radically with them on some moral or political matter. This, I argued, is a mistake, for there very many ways of disagreeing with Catholic moral teaching, . . . . Continue Reading »
A recent diagnosis of cancer I got late last year, with some subsequent surgery I had to undergo in February, got me to thinking (as well it might) of death, the immortality of the soul, and the final resurrection of the dead. Being a theologian by habit, if not by talent, in the past four months I . . . . Continue Reading »
Last week, the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops met and let the world know just what they think of the rest of the Anglican Communion. The official text of their resolutions ran to several thousand words, but for the effect they are likely to have on the church’s relations with the . . . . Continue Reading »
I think it was David Brooks who coined, years ago, the term "beyondist." A beyondist is someone who urges us to get beyond left/right distinctions, beyond partisan politics, beyond the stymied options of the day. Jim Wallis is a good example, as the title of his book God’s Politics: . . . . Continue Reading »
Herewith an item from "The Public Square" in a forthcoming issue of First Things : It has been almost fifty years since C.P. Snow fixed the world’s attention on the way in which there are "two cultures," with scientists living in one and humanists in the other. Snow’s . . . . Continue Reading »
I recently argued in this space that Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and director of the Cardinal Van Thuân International Observatory , was wrong when he argued that "relativism"¯by which Crepaldi means an a priori rejection . . . . Continue Reading »
Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and director of the Cardinal Van Thuân International Observatory , has an essay on reason and religion in the public square in the ZENIT Daily Dispatch for March 10, 2007. Crepaldi is worried about what he . . . . Continue Reading »
The April 2007 issue of First Things is now on newsstands¯which also means that it’s available online for subscribers.This is another strong, wide-ranging issue of the magazine¯if we do say so ourselves. Which we do. I mean, it’s part of our job to insist that all new issues . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
