♦ The indispensable data analyst Ryan Burge reports a slight uptick in belief in the afterlife. A long-running survey of Americans has asked the same question since 1973: “Do you believe there is life after death?” Seventy-six percent of respondents said “yes” in 1973. In 2022, 82 percent said “yes.” Is a super-majority religious, even though only a minority go to church regularly? In a certain respect, yes. Burge digs into the survey results. He finds that among those who describe themselves as non-religious, nearly 50 percent reported belief in an afterlife in the 1970s. Then, after a period that many describe as a time of religious decline, that percentage rose to more than 60 percent in 2022. His explanation is that the “nones” in the 1970s were a smaller cohort than they are today. Surrounded by cultural Christianity, they were more self-consciously secular. Today, the cohort of “nones” has grown dramatically, perhaps as much by default as through lack of religious convictions, however vague. Today, non-churchgoing folks seem less inclined to embrace a consistent secularism.
♦ Another fascinating fact: When controlling for education, Burge finds that “an educated person was more likely to believe that there was life after death than someone with less education.”
♦ Leszek Kolakowski makes some interesting observations about the theological contributions to secularization (from Modernity on Endless Trial):
The secularization of the Christian world does not necessarily take the form of a direct denial of the sacred; it comes about indirectly, through the universalization of the sacred. This, by abolishing the distinction between the sacred and the secular, gives the same result. This is a Christianity which hastens to sanctify in advance all forms of secular life because it considers them to be crystallizations of divine energy: a Christianity without evil, the Christianity of Teilhard de Chardin. It is faith in the universal salvation of everyone and everything. . . . It is the Church of aggiornamento, that peculiar term which manages to combine two ideas that are not only different but, in some interpretations, mutually contradictory. According to one, to be a Christian is to be not only outside the world but also in the world; according to the other, to be a Christian is never to be against the world. One says that the Church must embrace as its own the cause of the poor and the oppressed; the other implies that the Church may not oppose the dominant forms of culture and must support the fashions and values recognized in secular society; that it must, in other words, be on the side of the strong and the victorious. Fearful lest it become relegated to an isolated sect, Christianity seems to be making a frenzied effort at mimicry in order to escape being devoured by its enemies—a reaction that seems defensive, but is in fact self-destructive. In the hope of saving itself, it seems to be assuming the colors of its environment, but the result is that it loses its identity, which depends on just that distinction between the sacred and the profane, and on the conflict that can and often must exist between them.
♦ On his Substack (“Deep Cosmopolis”), Adam K. Webb reflects on the anxious and conformist habits of today’s elites, or what some (including Webb) call the New Class:
A quarter of the way into this century, the ruling stratum of the West is largely the new class raised by the new class. It is encrusted at least two generations deep with the ethos of late modernity. But such upbringing has not been mostly about inculcating a new civilisation. It has been more about an uprooting, a disenchanting, a clearing away of the supposedly unenlightened past. Unfortunately, the past that has been shed also just happens to include most of the resources that might give moral compass beyond ambition.
Webb worries that liberalism (understood as a cultural gestalt, not a political theory) “has had a huge blind spot as it has steamrolled over the past. The naked individual, with all the opportunities and indulgences of this century, quakes too easily before power.”
♦ Greg Conti makes a compelling case for free speech (“The Right Must Stand for Free Speech,” Compact, October 3, 2025). He warns against the right-wing temptation to take up the left’s cudgel of “hate speech”:
Democracy is not about some mushy “unity.” There are real divisions; not all sides can win. Of course there are moments of vulgarity and sharp conflict and people will say foolish and awful things. Of course people can be deeply hurt when their beliefs or allegiances or identities are questioned. But the whole gamble of democracy is that, all things considered, it is worth enduring this pain, because the alternative lies somewhere on the spectrum between the “managed democracy” of Europe, the politics of which seem more artificial and brittle by the day, and the soulless if contented stasis of Brave New World. Rather than breathing new life into some of the worst themes of the recent left like hate speech and cancellation, it would be far better to model a spirit of vigorous and even vitriolic engagement coupled with unswerving protection of the rights of all.
I agree with Conti. If we’re to sustain a democratic culture, we need high tolerance of sharp words and a willingness to endure forceful public statements of views contrary to our own.
♦ Aris Roussinos on one of the contradictions of today’s liberal establishment (framed in terms of contemporary British politics): “The Home Secretary [Shabana Mahmood] declares that ‘ethnonationalism’ is a societal evil to be defeated, while [Keir] Starmer endorses its basic principle in asserting that Israel and Palestine require two separate nation states to prevent their two peoples from slaughtering each other.”
♦ A friend recently read the Book of Ecclesiastes. He asked me, “Isn’t it just a nihilistic rant?” The only hope he could see is in the exhortation that concludes the book: “Fear God, and keep his commandments.” That struck him as thin beer. “Au contraire,” I replied. In his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul provides his own “nihilistic rant,” warning his readers that the wisdom and righteousness we may imagine we have attained is for naught. All things of this world groan under the weight of sin and death. Our only hope is in Christ Jesus, who liberates us from our bondage to the law of sin so that we may . . . fear God and keep his commandments.
♦ A friend in London drew my attention to a headline in the Daily Mail: “[Mayor] Sadiq Khan accused of ‘facilitating cover-up’ of grooming gangs in London.” I don’t know whether the accusation is true. But I do know that it has been the modus operandi of our elites to suppress unpleasant information about immigration (and other matters) so that the general public remains docile to the multicultural project, which, they believe, just needs a bit more time to become a smashing success as the “arc of history” brings us the New Global Man.
♦ Next year marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It’s conventional to dwell on the second paragraph of that historic document, especially its ringing affirmations: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Furthermore, “that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” All true and important. But we need to pay equal attention—perhaps more attention, given present challenges—to the first paragraph and its affirmation of “one people.”
Those gathered in Philadelphia did not represent themselves. They spoke for an integral body of countrymen whose common life and shared purposes entitled them to national sovereignty. The liberal principles that inform the Declaration’s second paragraph are empty without the presumptive unity and coherence of the nation, its existence as “one people.” And note well: The liberal principles of the second paragraph offer few resources for sustaining, much less restoring, national unity and civic coherence. The work of solidarity requires an imagination open to things both deeper and higher than the language of rights. Abraham Lincoln knew as much. Facing a nation about to be divided, he made nuanced arguments about the Constitution but ended his First Inaugural Address with an appeal to “the mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land.”
♦ A June 2025 Gallup Poll reveals that only slightly more than one-third of Democrats are “extremely or very proud” to be Americans, compared to more than 90 percent of Republicans. Members of Gen Z are the least likely generation to be extremely or very proud to be Americans. Both results suggest that the anti-American ideologies of the left have had significant effects. Can a country endure without patriotic pride? Is it anti-liberal to employ illiberal means to sideline those ideologies and thus repair the damage to the “one people,” whom the Founders recognized as the guardian and guarantor of liberty?
♦ There’s another pattern evident in the Gallup Poll. Among Democrats, patriotic pride rises and falls sharply in accord with political results. When Trump has been in the White House, their patriotism has waned. It waxed when Obama and Biden held office. In contrast, Republican patriotism falls less markedly when Democrats are in charge. The data chime with my impressions of our political culture. The American left does not believe that it can or should share power with the right. When they are out of power, they blame the country (“deplorables”). Those on the right have a different attitude. Conservatives want their candidates to win, of course, but when they lose, they remain proud of their country, which they recognize they must share with those on the other side of the aisle.
♦ The 1967 war in the Middle East ended disastrously for the Arab countries, the armies of which were handily defeated by Israeli forces. But loss became gain. As Hussein Aboubakr Mansour writes:
For the Arabs, Palestine became the symbolic axis around which revolutionary meaning could be organized; a theology of national martyrdom at a time when the political future was bleak. But for the Western and non-Arab Left, Palestine offered something even more profound: a moral mirror. The Palestinian fighter, stripped of his homeland, history, and worldly power, became the incarnation of a redemptive universal victimhood that could sacralize violence and turn hatred into a means of universal redemption.
I recommend the entire essay, “The Enchantment of the Arab Mind,” which may be found on Mansour’s Substack, “The Abrahamic Metacritique.” Mansour makes a convincing argument that today’s Islamist radicalism is a descendant of modern Western ideologies rather than a resurgence of pre-modern Islamic “fundamentalism.” And Mansour notes that those ideologies have failed, not just in the Middle East, but in the West as well. Rough seas ahead, he predicts.
♦ Three readers are seeking to form ROFTers groups. This grassroots movement among our readership meets monthly for discussion of the latest issue. Over the years I have visited ROFTers groups, and I can testify to the high level of engagement—and the warm fellowship. To join a new group in your area, contact the folks below:
Ron Jenkins of Portland, Maine: jenkins@meridian361.com
Brendan Nagle of McLean, Virginia: dbh4_98@yahoo.com
Edward Mason of Birmingham, United Kingdom: eapmason@icloud.com
There are existing groups in many cities. To find one near you, go to firstthings.com/reading-groups/.
♦ We continue to prepare for the launch of Portico, a new literary quarterly under the editorial leadership of our poetry editor, Micah Mattix. Our hope is to have the first issue in your hands in March 2026. It’s an exciting new venture. We’ll have a website up and running soon, which will provide a way for you to subscribe.
♦ This summer, the John Templeton Foundation awarded First Things a major grant, the main purpose of which is to underwrite an array of fortnightly newsletters addressing topics of interest to First Things readers. First Things newsletter editor Virginia Aabrams and associate editor Jacob Akey have been busy solving technical issues, designing the newsletters, and recruiting writers. I’m pleased to announce that we’ll soon launch “The Fourth Watch” and “The Protestant Mind.”
Written by Jim Keating, “The Fourth Watch” (a reference to Mark 6:48 and the dark hours before dawn) will reflect on Catholic matters. Regular readers know that Jim is a trusted theological guide to Catholic theology. “The Protestant Mind” will be overseen by Dale Coulter, and as the title indicates, he’ll address the goings-on among children of the Reformation. A professor at Pentecostal Theological Seminary and expert in medieval spiritual theology, Dale is well equipped to trace the movements of the Spirit.
By the end of 2025, or soon thereafter, we’ll launch a newsletter written by J. J. Kimche that will address topics in Judaism, as well as one written by Ned Desmond, which considers the challenges of trends in AI to life and society.
You can subscribe to these newsletters by visiting our website: firstthings.com/newsletters/.
♦ The leaves have turned and fallen. Christmas is coming, and year’s end is near. This is the season of our most important fundraising drive. 2025 was a great year for First Things. With your support, 2026 can be even better. Please make a donation!
