A Brief History of the Private Lives of the Roman Emperors.

Briefly Noted - Book review

A campaign of narratives.

Presidential campaign - Viewpoint essay

A charitable endeavor.

Catholic charities in the United States

A demand for freedom.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

A green thought in a green shade.

Letter to the editor

A level praying field.

Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought - Book review

A medieval monk, it is said, worked all day on a manuscript, finally writing in the margin, Nunc scripsi totum, pro Christo da mihi poturn--I have now written everything, for the sake of Christ give me a drink.

While We're At It - Brief article

A month later the New York Times had a story on Mexican cartels recruiting young Mexican and American men to fight in the drug wars.

While We're At It

A nation of hustlers.

Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829-1877 - Book review

A place in the Cosmos.

The Writings of Charles De Koninck, vol. 1 - Book review

A prayer book of one's own.

Opinion - "The Koren Sacks Siddur: A Hebrew-English Prayerbook"

A religion for atheists.

Opinion - Viewpoint essay

A reminder, as the debate over conscience exemptions for medical personnel gets underway.

While We're At It - Abortion during the Nazi era - Brief article

A room with a view.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

A story has been running in Dallas about 'Baby Bella,' a baby abandoned in an apartment complex hallway moments following her birth.

While We're At It

A sudden collapse in fertility produces a slow-motion train wreck in a third-world society, as the age cohorts collapse in accordion fashion.

While We're At It

A tale of two cities.

Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces - Book review

A tiny pieta.

Opinion - Still-born children - Essay

A United Church of Christ congregation explains on its website that it welcomes everyone: 'no matter ... where you're going on life's journey.'.

While We're At It

Abortion after Obama.

Opinion - Barack Obama

Abortion diminishes us all.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Abortion is a holy blessing, says the new dean and president of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Katherine Ragsdale.

While We're At It

Abortion Under State Constitutions.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Admonition for the Seventh Decade.

Poem

Advent Carol.

Poem

After Sappho.

Poem

Against Throne and Altar: Machiavelli and Political Theory under the English Republic.

Briefly Noted - Book review

All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World.

Briefly Noted - Book review

All persons have the 'right to choose a lifestyle,' Scottish parliament member Margo MacDonald recently declared, and 'their wishes are [to be] respected.'.

While We're At It

Alzheimer's Blues.

Poem

Among the most infamous of Nazi war criminals was Dr. Josef Mengele.

While We're At It - Brief article

An apology for democratic capitalism.

Essay

An Introduction to Medieval Philosophy: Basic Concepts.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

And how long has it been going on that the New York Times has gotten its initial facts so wrong it had to publish a correction?

While We're At It

And the war came.

THE PUBLIC SQUARE: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

And then the newly elected bishop of Stockholm, the Rev. Eva Brunne, says that her being a lesbian means she knows 'what it is to be called into question.'.

While We're At It

And we have a winner in the Moral Equivalency contest.

While We're At It - Brief article

Angels and Ministers of Grace.

'No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims About Jesus' - Book review

Approaching Islam.

Letters - Letter to the editor

As of this writing, I am contending with a cancer, presently of unknown origin.

While We're At It - Viewpoint essay - Brief article

As of this writing, I am contending with a cancer, presently of unknown origin.

While We're At It - Brief article

As you probably know, David Bentley Hart is a man who knows his mind and is not reticent in letting you know it too.

While We're At It - In the Aftermath: Provocations and Laments - Brief article - Book review

Asking the wrong question.

Opinion - Essay

At an ecumenical gathering in connection with an International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of ELCA Lutherans, prefaced his presentation by washing the feet of two women who are HIV-positive.

While We're At It - Conference news

At This Still Point of the Turning World.

Poem

Atheists and Christians together.

The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? - Book review

Avery Cardinal Dulles, the closest of collaborators and friends, died December 12 at age ninety in the infirmary of the Jesuit residence at Fordham University.

While We're At It - Obituary - Brief article

Avery Cardinal Dulles, the closest of collaborators and friends, died December 12 at age ninety in the infirmary of the Jesuit residence at Fordham University.

While We're At It - Obituary - Brief article

Azores.

Briefly Noted

Baby talk.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Back in February, Dr. Jeff Steinberg, director of Fertility Institutes in Los Angeles, announced that he would help couples choose the eye, hair, and skin color of their children using genetic embryo screening.

While We're At It - Brief article

Bavarian Baroque.

Poem

Be afraid--be very afraid.

Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

Being Catholic Now: Prominent Americans Talk About Change in the Church and the Quest for Meaning.

Briefly Noted

Believe it or not, sodium silicate ('liquid glass' to its friends) is in the news.

While We're At It

Believer.

Poem

Believing and Seeing: the Art of Gothic Cathedrals.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Beyond the wild wood.

Book review

Bill Clinton did say that human cloning, at least, is unacceptable.

While We're At It - Brief article

Biotech: what to expect.

Opinion - Biotechnology

Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America underwent HIV/AIDS testing early in March.

While We're At It - Brief article

Blessed are the green of heart.

The Green Bible - Critical essay

Body Shadows.

Poem - Brief article

Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Body Worlds, the traveling exhibit of plasticized human bodies, is now devoting an entire show to copulating cadavers.

While We're At It

Bread upon the waters.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Britain's Royal Society has recently released a report on the possible applications of geoengineering--deliberate, large scale intervention in the earth's climate system-in solving the current climate crisis.

While We're At It

But wait, there's more!(Letters) (Letter to the editor)

Caesar for a Day.

Poem

Called to Love: Approaching John Paul II's Theology of the Body.

Briefly Noted

Canadian Summers.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Candid Headstone.

Poem

Capitalism: not dead yet.

Letter to the editor

Cardinal Newman's reference to his patron saints recalls last month s comment on the declining practice of bestowing the names of saints at baptism.

While We're At It - John Henry Newman

Catholic matters.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Catholicism and Religious Freedom: Contemporary Reflections on Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Liberty.

Book review

Catholics as they were.

The Faithful: A History of Catholics in America - Book review

Charity & unity.

Charles Taylor's A Secular Age is a work much reviewed, and it is interesting to note the differences when a Methodist, an Anglican, and a Catholic reviewer get a hold of it.

While We're At It

Childish things.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Children of God.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

China's Catholic moment.

Choose your own narrative.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Christianity face to face with Islam.

Essay

Church ladies.

Catholic and Feminist: The Surprising History of the American Catholic Feminist Movement - Book review

Cold war religion.

Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945-1960: The Soul of Containment - Book review

Collected letters.

The Church's Guide for Reading Paul: The Canonical Shaping of the Pauline Corpus - Book review

'Collective Spirituality Behind Youth Crowds for Pope?' asks the headline of a story in Religion Watch.

While We're At It - Brief article

Commentary on the dismal state of Catholic preaching is a commonplace.

While We're At It - Brief article

Common currency.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Comrades in arms.

Memorials - Richard Neuhaus - In memoriam

Conceptions of Parenthood: Ethics and the Family.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Contingency.

Poem

Counting money, Time magazine breathlessly the reader informs, increases one's social happiness and, confirmed by a separate study, also serves as a pain reliever.

While We're At It

Cranky and getting crankier.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Crediting faith.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Darwin in the Louvre.

The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution - Book review

Day by day.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Death for fun and profit.

Death in Naples.

Deep down things.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Defending Nora's honor.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Define encouragement.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Demographics & depression.

Viewpoint essay

Desert Blossoming.

Poem - Brief article

Despite devastating critiques of his positions, Peter Singer goes on and on.

While We're At It - Brief article

Dhimmitude deferred.

Disclaimer.

Poem

Disfigure of Speech.

Poem

Disputed election.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Do whatever he tells you: the Blessed Virgin Mary in Christian faith and life: a statement of Evangelicals and Catholics together.

Report

Does the president live in a furnished soul?

While We're At It - Barack Obama - Brief article

Doing God.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Do-It-Yourself Tradition.

Books on evangelicalism - Book review

Down in the darkness.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Dr. Philip Nitschke, 'England's Dr. Death,' runs Exit International, a pro-euthanasia group.

While We're At It

During her recent diplomatic trip to Mexico, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a brief tour of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

While We're At It

Economic justice an the spirit of innovation.

Viewpoint essay

Empathy & apathy.

Opinion

Europe's nightmare.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Evangelicals and Catholics together.

Memorials - Richard Neuhaus - In memoriam

Even this magazine's founder, Richard John Neuhaus, came in for some recent knocks from a former associate.

While We're At It

Evening prayer.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Every six months or so another two or three books by Benedict XVI show up from Ignatius Press.

While We're At It

Everybody who writes much, and especially those of us who write too much, gets asked from time to time, Who have been the great influences on your thinking?

While We're At It - Arthur Carl Piepkorn

Examination of conscience.

The Problem of Natural Law - Book review

Execration for an Unfaithful Husband.

Poem

Facing Islam.

Letter to the editor

Faith & finance.

Essay

Farm Boy, Call Kayla.

Poem

Feeling Our Feelings: What Philosophers Think and People Know.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Fighting for the Cross: Crusading to the Holy Land.

Briefly Noted

First Things' distinguished board-member Russell Hittinger has been newly named to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which exists "to promote the study and the progress of the social sciences, primarily economics, sociology, law, and political science.

While We're At It

First things first.

Memorials - Neuhaus, Richard John - In memoriam

FIRST THINGS has a tradition of looking at the annual updates for the most popular names for children.

While We're At It

Fishers of men.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Fixing the liturgy.

Letters - Letter to the editor

For a Joint Fortieth Birthday.

Poem

For a Young Dancer on St. Patrick's Day.

Poem

For his New York Times article 'Coming Out in Middle School,' Benoit Denizet-Lewis interviewed middle-school children from all over the country who have identified themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual and have come out to their friends and families.

While We're At It

For its own Easter celebrations, the Times Literary Supplement reviewed Ian Linden's new Global Catholicism.

While We're At It - Brief article

For Kashmir.

Poem

For the final word on all of this, look to Charles Krauthammer's powerful column in the Washington Post, which concludes: 'Dr. James Thomson, the pioneer of embryonic stem cells, said 'If human embryonic stem-cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.'.

While We're At It - Brief article

Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: the Life of Luther Martin.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Foster Child.

Poem

Fr. Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, has written an apologetic letter to the university's community in the wake of last spring's agitation over the awarding of an honorary law degree to President Obama.

While We're At It

Fr. Kevin Thew Forrester's selection as bishop of the Episcopal Church's diocese of Northern Michigan hit a snag in July when--as announced by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori--a majority of the Episcopal bishops and diocesan committees refused to give their necessary consent to his election.

While We're At It

Freedom for faith, freedom for all.

Freeing Islam.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Frontiers of Faith: Bringing Catholicism to the West in the Early Republic.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Gambling with lives.

Gambling addiction

George Lindbeck was an official Lutheran observer at the Second Vatican Council and he recalls a meeting with John XXIII when the pope spoke on some of his favorite words from Scripture, 'the mercies of the Lord are new every morning.'.

While We're At It - Brief article

Georgette Fortney, Anglicans for Life president, took up the Episcopal confessional rite for abortion and took it up very personally.

While We're At It

Georgic.

Poem

Getting the Blues: what Blues Music Teaches us about Suffering and Salvation.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Ghazal to the One.

Poem - Brief article

Give a boy a hammer and he discovers the whole world needs hammering.

While We're At It - The Tragic Sense of Life - Brief article - Book review

God's first love: the theology of Michael Wyschogrod.

Report

God-talk.

Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology - Book review

Good Grief.

Poem

Hallelujah.

Poem

Hansen's Hopkins.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Hast thou considered my servant Faust?

Have a tip for an item that would make a good While We're At It?

While We're At It

"He felt his cell phone vibrate.

While We're At It

He would have you fight.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

Heavy Water.

Poem

Helen Barrett Montgomery: The Global Mission of Domestic Feminism.

Briefly Noted

Henry Howard.

Poem

Her choice, her problem: how abortion empowers men.

Opinion

Her Place in These Designs.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

Here he stood.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Historian James Hitchcock has an insightful column comparing the formal similarities shared by the Episcopal Church in the United States and the New York Times: one is losing members, the other subscribers.

While We're At It

Homecoming.

Poem - Brief article

How Balthasar Changed My Mind: Fifteen Scholars Reflect on the Meaning of Balthasar for Their Own Work.

Briefly Noted

How pedophilia lost its cool.

'I argue that in American culture, on the whole, language of the sacred, even language of God, can be pragmatically justified.'.

While We're At It - William Dean

'I Did Not Come to Call the Righteous'.

Poem

I measure every grief I meet.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

I see that Lionel, the maker of model trains, which had been operating out of a Detroit suburb for the past four decades, has moved its headquarters back to Manhattan.

While We're At It - Detroit, Michigan; Manhattan, New York - Brief article

Iconic vision.

"Encounters with God: In Quest of the Ancient Icons of Mary" - Book review

If All Is Relative.

Poem

I'm just a damn Yankee way down in the South, the old song goes.

While We're At It - Brief article

In a recent interview with the Washington Post (part of their ominously tided "Vioces of Power" series).

While We're At It

In America's image.

In an article in the journal Contraception, Elizabeth Westley, Francine Coeytaux, and Elisa Wells worry about the future of emergency contraception.

While We're At It

In another publication we recently did a whimsical little piece occasioned by a politically correct manifesto issued by The Magickal Childe, a Manhattan store specializing in things demonic.

While We're At It - Brief article

In between the angels and the apes.

In December 2007, when Belmont Abbey College discovered coverage for abortion, contraception, and sterilization tucked away in their employee health-insurance policy, they did what any Catholic college would--well, ought to--do, they had that coverage removed.

While We're At It

In grateful memory of Father Richard John Neuhaus.

Brief article

In his new book The Future of the Church, the reporter of all things Catholic John Allen muses on what a new theological evaluation of Islam by the Church might look like.

While We're At It

In point of fact, says the Rev. Churchman, 'women should be able to mourn the loss of an aborted fetus without having to confess anything.

While We're At It

In Refusal of Politics: Sapphics for Richard John Neuhaus.

Poem - Brief article

In sermons for the Jewish New Year this September 19, rabbis across America denounced the United Nations' Goldstone report on purported Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

While We're At It

In the second week of March, President Obama made good on his campaign promise to increase federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

While We're At It - Brief article

In 1967, Susan Chapulis, a sixth grader studying monasticism, wrote to Thomas Merton asking for 'any information whatsoever' that she could share with her class.

While We're At It

In 1983, the Catholic bishops issued, to much media applause, a pastoral letter, 'The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response.'.

While We're At It - Brief article

Instead of the birth of Iranian democracy, the crisis that followed the June elections may portend the irreversible decline of an ancient country.

While We're At It

Intelligent and entertaining are two adjectives that go together far too rarely, but they belong in company when speaking of our contributing writer Alan Jacobs.

While We're At It - Brief article

Internal Iranian data show a high degree of disaffection among young people.

While We're At It

Into the Dark: Seeing the Sacred in the Top Films of the 21st Century.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

Intolerant tolerance.

Opinion

Inventing the Crusades.

The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam - Book review

Iran's regime has been wounded by the events of June 2009.

While We're At It

Irving Kristol, 1920-2009.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

Israel's defense.

It is not so much a very big thing as a very odd thing.

While We're At It - Brief article

It seems entirely obvious: an effective means of promoting sorely needed social justice and school reform.

While We're At It

It was just over fifty years ago--January 25, 1959, in fact--that John XXIII announced his intention to call an ecumenical council.

While We're At It - Brief article

It's not a big thing, but it does make one a little sad--the announcement from Polaroid that it has ceased production of its classic instant self-developing film.

While We're At It - Brief article

'I've got good news and bad news,' said Moses as he came down the mountain.

While We're At It - Adultery - Brief article

Jean Piaget, often called the father of cognitive development, said somewhere that, if we could understand what is going on in the mind of a baby during the first year of life, we could understand a thousand times more about ourselves than we do.

While We're At It - Brief article

Jeffrey Tucker notes that watching Angels and Demons wasn't an altogether unpleasant experience.

While We're At It

Jewish atheists, it turns out, now have their own rabbinate, yeshivas, and congregations, as well as their own chaplain at Harvard University--a Mecca, as it were, for Jewish atheists.

While We're At It - Brief article

Jewish survival in a gentile world.

Jews and gentlemen.

Letters - Letter to the editor

July.

Poem

Just one more word on our friend Avery Dulles.

While We're At It - In memoriam

Just one more word on our friend Avery Dulles.

While We're At It - In memoriam

Just yesterday, walking through the park at Madison and 23rd, I passed a quiet man, on a quiet bench beneath those quiet summer trees, quietly reading a shopworn hardback copy of that 1964 classic Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships by Eric Berne.

While We're At It

Justifying Paul.

Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision - Book review

Karen Novak, 1938-2009.

Opinion

Karl Brandt, the Nazi Doctor: Medicine and Power in the Third Reich.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Keeping time.

A Time to Keep Silence - Book review

Kenneth Anderson teaches law at American University in Washington, D.C., and has wise things to say in his review of Philip Bobbitt's new book, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century.

While We're At It

Knowing the truth.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Last month's issue of First Things was spotted by a reader in the New Age section at the Barnes & Noble in Overland Park, Kansas.

While We're At It

Law's little acres.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

'Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations.'.

While We're At It

Lives and legacies: biographies of 2009.

Opinion

Living in the end times.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Lonerganians.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Long ago, when I was a student at Concordia College (now Concordia University) in Austin, Texas, I was greatly impressed by a sermon that kept returning to the theme, 'God has no grandchildren. He only has children.'.

While We're At It

Los Angeles in Fog.

Poem

Majority.

Poem

Mary had a little lamb.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Meanwhile, back again in Britain, doctors at an national healthcare hospital left a newborn baby to die because he was born too prematurely--and, when challenged, they perfunctorily cited national guidelines for limiting perinatal care.

While We're At It

Meanwhile, the United Methodist Hymnal committee is out roaming Mother Earth, seeking progressive tunes for the times.

While We're At It

Meanwhile--are you still with me?--other English-speaking conferences, led by the UK and Australia, decided to undertake their own revision of the NRSV.

While We're At It - United Kingdom, New Revised Standard Version - Brief article

Mediating institutions.

To Empower People: From State To Civil Society - Book review

Messianic Gentiles & Messianic Jews.

Critical essay

Methodists & microcredit.

Opinion

Mind Games.

Work on Oneself: Wittgenstein's Philosophical Psychology - Book review

Ministering to ministry.

Freedom for Ministry - Book review

Minus.

Poem

Moral business.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Morning's minion.

Mortal Follies: Episcopalians and the Crisis of Mainline Christianity.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Mr. Smith goes to Nicea.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Multiplying himself.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Multiplying miracles.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

My brother in Christ.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

My Personal Strunk and White.

Memorials - Richard Neuhaus - In memoriam

My Sister's Keeper is a film about Anna, an eleven-year-old girl genetically designed by her parents to be her ailing sister's ready organ bank.

While We're At It

Nazis and Catholics.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Neuhaus invades Poland.

Memorials - Richard Neuhaus - In memoriam

New England's Cushing Academy has figured it out.

While We're At It

New times.

Letters - Letter to the editor

New Yorkers, or at least New Yorkers who live in Manhattan, are inveterate walkers.

While We're At It - Brief article

Nicotine Theological Journal is not just about smoking, although the editors do keep returning to the subject in order to tweak religious liberalism about one of its most adamantly held dogmas, the unmitigated evil of tobacco.

While We're At It

No Man's Island.

Poem

Note this, from the announcement of a press call on the unions' desired card-check legislation, when the bill was before Congress: 'prominent interfaith leaders, including Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners, Kim Bobo of Interfaith Worker Justice, Bishop Greg Rickel, and Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, will hold a press conference call.

While We're At It

Notre Dame, again.

Letters - Letter to the editor

O Death, Where Is Thy Sting-a-Ling-a-Ling?

Nothing to be Afraid Of - Book review

Of course it's a lie, but the sheer brazenness of it elicits something akin to respect.

While We're At It - Brief article

Of course, the realists may underestimate the importance of the June rebellion just as much as the idealists exaggerated it.

While We're At It

Of course, there is something to be said for the Muslims' view of Birk's project.

While We're At It

Of second things--and first things.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey Of Religion, Culture, And Public Life - Viewpoint essay

On loving the law of God.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life - Essay

On past occasions, First Things has deplored conspiracy-mongering and fanaticism on the part of professional anti-Semite hunters.

While We're At It

On that edition of Larry King Live, Clinton was interviewed by Sanjay Gupta.

While We're At It - Brief article

On the front page of the Wall Street Journal, an article about thefts of hay in Texas, in which we're told, 'searing summer temperatures and a lack of rain have turned pastures here brown and crunchy, depriving cattle of the green grass they usually live on this time of year.

While We're At It

On the square.

The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America - Book review

On Thinking Institutionally.

Brief article - Book review

On thorns and yoghs.

Letters - Letter to the editor

On war and apocalypse.

One opponent to the liturgical resource, the Rev. Nina Churchman in Denver, Colorado, found herself 'sickened to discover that the rite for abortion is couched wholly in terms of sin and transgression.'.

While We're At It

Origin of the specious.

Opinion - "The Evolution of God" - Critical essay

Our friend Dimitri Cavalli writes to say that the outrage over the pope's claim in Africa that condoms makes things worse brings to mind a story about the late Dr. Theresa Crenshaw.

While We're At It - Brief article

Our loss of Cardinal Dulles.

Letters - Letter to the editor

'Out of the Whirlwind: Claiming a Vision of Progressive Christianity.'.

While We're At It

Pedantic Park.

Perhaps you noticed the NYU Child Study Center's questions target only certain children, kids somewhere in the A and B range with potential for getting into a good school.

While We're At It

Periodic suggestions are made to remove 'In God We Trust' from U.S. coinage and currency--a motto regarded as a horrible transgression against separation of church and state in some quarters.

While We're At It

Phenomenology of the Human Person.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Pilgrimage to Fifth Avenue.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler.

Briefly Noted - Book review

Poor Anne Rice.

While We're At It - Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana - Book review

Port Jackson Greaseproof Rose.

Poem

Possibly you noticed the goofy formulation in that Episcopal rite for abortion: 'God rejoices that you have come seeking God's merciful forgiveness'.

While We're At It

Preserving the law.

Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism - Book review

President Obama did not go half far enough in lifting the ban against federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

While We're At It

Priest to pontiff.

"Benedict XVI: An Intimate Portrait" - Book review

Prior to the election, some Iranian commentators claimed that the so-called reformer Hossein Moussavi would actually end up taking a stronger line against the United States than President Ahmadinejad, who was widely denounced by hard-line clerics for agreeing to meet with Barack Obama.

While We're At It

Pro-animal, pro-life.

Progress without pause.

Opinion - Essay

Proving God.

Letter to the editor

Provocative poetry.

Letter to the editor

Psalm.

Poem

Pulling the plug on the conscience clause.

Reading the Qur'an through the Bible.

Opinion

Regarding the pain of others.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Religion, culture, and public life.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Remembering Richard John Neuhaus.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Researchers have learned that unborn babies at thirty-weeks gestation are forming short-term memories.

While We're At It

Resolving doubt.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Reviewing In Defense of Religious Liberty, a book by longtime FIRST THINGS contributor David Novak, the sometime FIRST THINGS contributor Benjamin Balint declares in Commentary magazine: 'Novak's burden is considerable' in arguing 'that morality cannot in principle be separated from religion, that God is the source of moral law, and that affirming natural rights requires first affirming God.'.

While We're At It - Brief article

Richard and the Jews.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Richard Garnett, professor of law at Notre Dame, wants us to consider this: Most of what we call church-state disputes in American law are nothing of the sort.

While We're At It

Richard John Neuhaus: May 14, 1936-January 8, 2009.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Richard's Book Club.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Right on cue, just a few days after Obama announced his decision, the New York Times chimed in with a strong defense of cloning--though they were careful never to use the word.

While We're At It - Brief article

Right Place, Right Time: Coming of Age With William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement.

Briefly Noted

Robert Benne, professor emeritus at the Lutheran Roanoke College in Virginia and director of the Center for Religion and Society, is by most accounts one of the best minds contributing to public theology with a Lutheran spin.

While We're At It - Brief article - Book review

Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

While We're At It

Sacred music, sacred time.

Report

Saint Askew.

Poem

Saint Louis Abbey.

Brief article

Saint Rolston.

"Saving Creation: Nature and Faith in the Life of Holmes Rolston III" - Book review

Sanctifying Islam.

Sandow Birk started out just "looking for good waves," but he may soon reap a whirlpool.

While We're At It

Saving the Holy Sepulchre: How Rival Christians Came Together to Rescue Their Holiest Shrine.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

Science seeking understanding.

Opinion - Viewpoint essay

Secularizations.

Essay

Seeing and disbelieving.

Letter to the editor

Selected Poems.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

Shades of infallibility.

Shadows in Amsterdam.

Opinion - Essay

Simon Schama whigs out.

"The American Future: A History" - Book review

Singin' them old third-way blues.

While We're At It

Sisters & daughters.

Opinion

Slouching Towards Pelosi.

'The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960' - Book review

Some call it a 'media cornucopia' and others call it anarchy and a formula for the dissolution of a common culture.

While We're At It

Some readers may not believe it, but we really do not comment on every fatuity championed by the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union.

While We're At It - Brief article

Some years ago, Monsignor Harry Byrne of Epiphany Church in Manhattan visited the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

While We're At It - Brief article

Speaking of Africa, do you need to clear space on your bookshelves?

While We're At It - African Book Project - Brief article

Speaking of LeRoy Carhart, four of his former employees have reported unsafe and illegal practices at his abortion clinic in Bellevue, Nebraska--including unsanitary conditions and unlicensed staff starting IVs and dispensing medication.

While We're At It

Speaking of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, the organization's former director, Kevin Jennings, has been appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Department of Education's Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools by President Obama.

While We're At It

St. Paul in the public square.

Opinion

St. Philip's Catholic Church in San Francisco is apparently one of those places where 'the action's at.'.

While We're At It - Brief article

Starlight in hell.

Russia

Stem Cells sell.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

Studs Terkel died last October at age ninety-six, and the obituaries were many and fulsome.

While We're At It - In memoriam - Brief article

Substrate.

Briefly Noted

Surprised by Calvin.

Opinion - John Calvin

Sweden recently passed measures to ban homeschooling for all children except foreigners and the disabled by 2011.

While We're At It

Talkin' 'bout My Generation.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

Ten days after Carolyn Savage underwent in-vitro-fertilization treatment, her family received an unexpected phone call.

While We're At It

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.

The Canterbury Tales - Book review

The analogy used in the opening portion of this month's Public Square--the image of zombies visiting Jane Austen--was not entirely at random.

While We're At It - Brief article

The Areopagus of Morningside Heights.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

The Art of Politics: The New Betrayal of America and How to Resist It.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

The Associated Press reports from Los Angeles that Cardinal Mahony is in legal trouble for failing to report a sex-abuse complaint: 'In the deposition transcript, archdiocesian attorney Don Woods said that, because the two alleged victims were adults when they filed their claim, Mahony was not obligated to report it to the police and did no wrong.'.

While We're At It

The beginning of wisdom.

The Body of the Church.

Can These Bones Live?: A Catholic Baptist Engagement with Ecclesiology, Hermeneutics, and Social Theory - Book review

The Book of All Saints.

Briefly Noted

The book of judges.

"Law and Judicial Duty" - Book review

The Book of numbers.

The cast of characters.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey Of Religion, Culture, And Public Life - First Things journal

The circus came to town yesterday.

While We're At It - 139th annual Animal Walk of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's Circus - Brief article

The Cistercian monks of Our Lady of Spring Bank primarily support themselves by selling printer ink, dog biscuits, and monastic goods on a website called LaserMonks.com.

While We're At It

The Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism, Professor Paul Kurtz founder and bishop, publishes Free Inquiry.

While We're At It - Viewpoint essay

The culture wars and the political battles by which they are fought are a day-by-day thing, the stuff of sound bites and news cycles.

While We're At It - Brief article

The dangers of email headers automatically generated by truncating the first line of the message: a publicity email I received today announced in its subject-line the news that the "Bishop of Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe Accepts The Gospel.".

While We're At It - Brief article

The day for the religious.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

The deep wickedness of sexually exploiting children (like the evil of the Holocaust) is one of those few points on which one expects near-universal agreement.

While We're At It - Brief article

The English theologian Nicholas Lash has a new volume of collected essays, Theology For Pilgrims (Notre Dame), which has received a sympathetic review from Lucy Beckett in the Times Literary Supplement.

While We're At It - Brief article - Book review

The face of civilization.

The folks at Eternal Earth-Bound Pets offer a service guaranteed to ease your worries about the exegesis of Amillennialism and Premillennialism.

While We're At It

The freedom of heaven & the freedom of hell.

The future of First Things.

Letters - Letter to the editor

The gift of lightheartedness.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

The God of Jesus Christ: Meditations on the Triune God.

Brief article - Book review

The Great Commission: Models of Evangelization in American Catholicism.

Briefly Noted - Book review

The great convivium.

Speech

The headline from a recent Newsweek article by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend reads: 'why Barack Obama represents American Catholics better than the Pope does'.

While We're At It

The historian Drew Gilpin Faust is the new president of Harvard University, and a while back we drew attention to her rather curious understanding of the intellectual life as revealed in her inaugural address as president.

While We're At It - This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War - Book review

The Jesuit opinion weekly America recently noted its hundredth anniversary, in partial celebration of which the editors are reprinting excerpts from some of its greatest hits.

While We're At It

The Jewish Jesus.

Letter to the editor

The Kingdoms of he world.

American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile - Book review

The Large Hadron Collider is a 4.5 billion dollar, seventen-mile long, underground physics experiment outside Geneva.

While We're At It

The last line of the New York Times editorial reads: 'When the N.I.H. sets the rules for federally financed research, the main criterion should be whether a proposal has high scientific merit.'.

While We're At It - Brief article

The laws of nature and of nature's God.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

The Legend of Death: Two Poetic Sequences.

Briefly Noted - Book review

The life of humanae vitae.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

The list seemed to contain exactly the right set of worries that normally motivated teenagers should have, if they're going to worry.

While We're At It

The Mailbox.

Poem

The middle class is now just under 60 percent of the world's population.

While We're At It - Brief article

The Mind That Is Catholic: Philosophical & Political Essays.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

The moral witness of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

The National Secular Society of England has begun a campaign that promotes 'de-baptism.'.

While We're At It - Brief article

The nature of desire.

Essay

The needle's eye: why America's economic recovery needs the Global South.

Essay

The New York Times explains it all: Michael Moore is a leftist because he is (was?) Catholic.

While We're At It

The Office of Religious Life at the University of Southern California extends official recognition to some eighty-six campus religious organizations.

While We're At It

The Once and Future Council.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

The one true church.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life - Essay

'The Politics of the Breast' is an opinion piece in the New York Times advocating the right of women to go bare-breasted on the subway.

While We're At It

The pro-life movement as the politics of the 1960s.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

The quest for the confessional Jesus.

"The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus" - Book review

The real crusades.

Letter to the editor

The region we do not hear about is Africa.

While We're At It - Brief article

The relentless quest for environmental sustainability has finally come to its logical conclusion: people are the problem--so get rid of them.

While We're At It

The Republic of Virtue.

Poem

The Return of Booker T. Washington.

'Booker T. Washington and the Struggle Against White Supremacy' and 'Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington' - Book review

The return of the best and brightest.

Opinion - Essay

The Return of the Golden Age.

Poem

The Rockford Raid.

Memorials - Richard Neuhaus - In memoriam

The Romantic's Prayer.

Poem

The rule of law and the wealth of nations.

The summer of 1683.

"The Enemy at the Gate: Hapsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe" - Book review

The term 'outsourcing labor' has taken on a new and quite literal meaning as more and more Americans are using--abusing might be a better term--Indian women as surrogate mothers, renting their wombs to carry children for them.

While We're At It

The theology of Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Essay

The Twain shall meet.

Correspondence - Letter to the editor

The Tyranny of Liberalism.

Briefly Noted - Book review

The unhappy fate of optional orthodoxy.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

The United Methodist Church's conferences are voting on a measure that would open church membership to active homosexuals.

While We're At It - Conference news

The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years.

Briefly Noted

The way, the truth, and Philip Jenkins.

Opinion - Critical essay

The will to disbelieve.

Essay

The Wine of Certitude: A Literary Biography of Ronald Knox.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

The wisdom of 'coming out of the closet' is a sometimes thing.

While We're At It - Homosexuality - Brief article

Then, in the pages of Commonweal, another longtime contributor, George Weigel, came under attack from another sometime contributor, Justus George Lawler.

While We're At It - Brief article

Then there's our former president, Bill Clinton.

While We're At It

There are, however, other movements afoot. When the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) came out in 1989, Canadians jumped the gun and started using it in the Mass.

While We're At It - Brief article

There are no doubt readers who, in their pitiful naivete, assume that some cultural artifacts are inherently superior to others.

While We're At It

There are three infallible signs of the crank--that oddball, goofball sort of person who mutters, as he walks along, about how he's grasped the key to everything.

While We're At It

There is little doubt the mid-twentieth-century split between Communio theologians (then called followers of the nouvelle theologie) and Thomistic theologians has caused trouble for the teaching office of the Catholic Church.

While We're At It

This does put Church of England Archbishop Rowan Williams in a pickle, doesn't it?

While We're At It

This is from the Challenges of Enculturation Department.

While We're At It

This is simply for the record.

While We're At It - Brief article

'This is the first translation since Dryden's that can be read as a great English poem in itself.'.

While We're At It - Critical essay

Thomas Aquinas on the Jews.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

Those who follow Oprah are often captivated by her resident medical expert, Dr. Mehmet Oz.

While We're At It

Thrillers and throwbacks: mystery books of 2009.

Opinion

Through much of the commentary on the death of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn last August, there was the repeated intimation--and sometimes vulgar assertion--that, after his return to Russia in 1994, he descended into crotchety old age and irrelevance.

While We're At It - In memoriam

Time Management.

Poem

To light a candle.

Memorials - Richard John Neuhaus - In memoriam

To The Jew First: The Case for Jewish Evangelism in Scripture and History.

Briefly Noted - Brief article - Book review

True development of the liturgy.

Opinion

Twenty-some years ago, Jeffrey Tulis published The Rhetorical Presidency, in which he emphasized the sharp break between the founders' understanding of that office and how it is understood today.

While We're At It

Two Cheers for Sovereignty.

'Sovereignty: God, State, and Self' - Book review

Two paths to freedom.

Letters - Letter to the editor

Unawares, by Parrots.

Poem

Understanding the difference.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

Vintage Richard.

Memorials - Richard Neuhaus - In memoriam

Visiting Geneva.

Poem

We almost got away with it.

While We're At It

We have long held a firm opinion about typographical errors: unless they produce an enormous embarrassment of spelling, grammar, or syntax, there is little reason to print one.

While We're At It - Brigham Young University - Brief article

We knew about evangelical romance novels and Mormon vampire fiction, but we didn't know about Beverly Lewis.

While We're At It

We were believers then, and young.

We're gonna turn this around.

Memorials - Richard Neuhaus - In memoriam

'We're supposed to be the most multicultural city in the world and it doesn't seem terribly inclusive,' Denny Alexander explained.

While We're At It

We've had bad experiences in modern times with the immanent eschatologies of the people who wanted to build heaven on earth or reestablish Eden--with Marxists and all the rest, who demanded, in one way or another, that the ultimate purposes of humankind be achieved.

While We're At It - Viewpoint essay

What art can--and can't--do.

Essay

What does woman want? The war between the sexless.

"Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and "Is There Hope for the American Marriage?"

What happened to the values voter? Believers and the 2008 election.

What marriage is--and what it isn't.

What the Rabbis Said: The Public Discourse of Nineteenth-Century American Rabbis.

Book review

What's sex got to do with it?

Letters - Letter to the editor

While Europe Slept.

Viewpoint essay

While we're at it.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

Whose modernity? Which revolution?

Why Avery Dulles matters.

Biography

Why then is still now.

The Public Square: A Continuing Survey of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

Wine Cellar.

Poem

Woman Bent with Infirmity.

Poem

Wondrous and silly: picture books of 2009.

Opinion

Words of nectar and cyanide.

E.M. Cioran - Biography

Yellow-Crowned Night Heron.

Poem

You may remember Mark C. Taylor.

While We're At It - After God - Brief article - Book review

Your average nonbeliever in the United States today is young, male, and Irish.

While We're At It