First Things

“The truth is, patriotism is back in all its gritty, brash, audacious glory. It’s Olympic hockey legend Jack Hughes, through bloodied, broken teeth and fresh off his golden goal, shamelessly proclaiming his pride in being an American. It’s stadiums of sports fans belting ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads.’ It’s foreign World Cup fans, fascinated by our Bass Pro Shops and Buc-ee’s gas stations, prompting Americans to look differently at the culture we take for granted. And it’s a sprawling fair in the middle of the National Mall showcasing the people and places that make our nation great.”

It’s Cool to Love America Again  by Susannah Seltzer firstthings.com/its-cool-to-lo…

A Curriculum for National Success In the latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein (@mark_bauerlein), Christopher Perrin joins in to discuss Classical Academic Press. firstthings.com/a-curriculum-f…

Thank you to @firstthingsmag for publishing my written testimony here. firstthings.com/are-autonomous…

“America’s 1776 revolution was a revolution of covenant. The Declaration’s claim that all men are ‘endowed by their Creator’ with unalienable rights is not decorative; it is the load-bearing pillar of the entire structure. Rights precede government because they come from God, not from the state. That is why the American experiment could limit government at all: if rights were the state’s gift, the state could just as easily be their author and their undertaker.”

1776 not 1789 Gerson Moreno-Riaño on the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the foundations of American liberty. Read in full at: firstthings.com/1776-not-1789/…

“If wokeness is indeed a new religion, then it may take an old religion to defeat it. If the advance of LGBT causes means the queering of all society, then we may need to privilege normality. If people are not mere individuals but members of particular communities, then we need well-ordered loyalties—most notably to the country we share. Anti-wokeness is not enough. It is necessary to stand for faith, family, and flag.” @matthewschmitz

Anti-Wokeness: An Obituary Matthew Schmitz firstthings.com/anti-wokeness-…

“Christianity is never reducible to culture, but neither does it exist in a vacuum. The African Church flourished because it was embedded in a vibrant world of cities, schools, civic networks, and common language that allowed the teachings of the Church to be shared and transmitted. When those structures collapsed, when Latin literacy faded, episcopal transmission became impossible to sustain.”

The Sudden Death of the African Church  D. P. Curtin firstthings.com/the-sudden-dea…

“Bad books drive out good ones, which means if we care about transmitting a healthy, critical, and capacious culture of reading to our children, we need to ban bad books from school libraries. If we don’t, books themselves will become meaningless, and the next generation will come to regard the written word as just another weapon in the ever-swelling arsenal of our culture wars—which is exactly how the Maoist school librarians see them.” @liel

Ban the Books Liel Leibovitz @liel firstthings.com/ban-the-books/…

Our editor was mortified to discover that he made an error in the most recent issue of First Things when announcing Yoram Hazony’s upcoming Erasmus Lecture in New York. He mistakenly suggested that the lecture would focus on the New Testament; the correct title is: “Only the Old Testament Can Restore America.” The lecture will be delivered on November 2. We will let you know when registration opens.

“Had she been around today, she would, I suspect, be weighing in on contemporary issues with fearless conviction, without regard to chasing ‘likes’ or reposts or combox affirmations. She was not aiming to be popular; she was intent on being truthful. Writing in the 1940s to Ferris Greenslet, then editor at Houghton Mifflin, Willa Cather called Undset ‘one of the most mercilessly truthful people I have ever known.’”

The Holdfast Sanctity of Sigrid Undset Amy Fahey firstthings.com/the-savage-san…

Mike Pence gets a lot of criticism, and I certainly have some major disagreements with him. But according to the reporting in this article by @JVanMaren, he is the man most responsible for the advances made by pro-lifers in the first Trump administration. They owe him gratitude.

“We inhabit our own isolated worlds rather than a single shared world with an ‘ethos of reciprocal recognition.’ We are besieged by images and opinions and personae—the simulacra of friends, lovers, family, neighbors—but starving for conversation, authentic exchange, and the joy of shared loves.”

Prisoners of Our Own Devices Matthew Gasda firstthings.com/prisoners-of-o…

“As the battle for the post-Trump GOP begins, a historical corrective on the first Trump administration is particularly essential. Pro-lifers who spent four years thanking the wrong man are now learning, belatedly, that transactional relationships have a price. The bill is now coming due, one abandoned commitment at a time.” @JVanMaren

How Trump Betrayed the Pro-Life Movement by Jonathon Van Maren @JVanMaren Read in full here firstthings.com/how-trump-betr…