Canter Bridge

First Things editor Richard John Neuhaus is famous for two things.

First, his intellectual and spiritual pilgrimage from liberal orthodoxy to Missouri Synod Lutheranism and then home to Roman Catholic faith has provided a point of reference and occasional road map to fellow travelers.

Then, his popularization of the diagnostic phrase ‘the naked public square’ to refer to a secularized pseudo-democracy where the voice of articulate faith is not welcome—together with his eventual championship of First Things from the editor’s chair—has made him something of an icon among thoughtful religious conservatives in North America and beyond.

All with good reason.

Under Neuhaus’ principled, witty, and occasional hilarious guidance, First Things has become a must-read for reviewers like this one (and his wife, who snatches it away to read when she collects the mail first and then delivers it to her beloved a month late and ragged of edge) who believe that a thoughtfully articulated traditional orthodoxy is not synonymous with obscurantism or bigotry.

The tone is substantially Roman Catholic, though evangelicals, Orthodox, and Jewish writers pepper its pages with their contributions on a regular and more than marginal basis.

The journal could be categorized as ‘neocon’ for its confident appraisal of an assertive international role for the United States, not out of any naive theo-nationalism, but rather from a position that empires come and go and that the more benign of them are to be critically welcomed for their contribution to peace and justice in a world where idealisms seldom accomplish either.

A highlight for many readers is Neuhaus’ ‘While We’re At It’ section in each issue’s final pages. The the editor engages in delicious debunking of (usually but not exclusively leftist) utopianisms that rail against all things traditional and common sensical without recognizing that poverty which offers no useful alternative.

Highbrow, curmudgeonly, vibrant, self-confident, and immersed in the Great Conversation even when it engages adversaries who didn’t know there was one, First Things is the leading thought journal for people who enjoy, engage, and accumulate a largeness of spirit in a context where good things are taken seriously and banality has a name.