Letter from the
Editor
Dear FIRST THINGS Readers,
I
t’s often easy to see what we oppose. We’re against woke tyranny. We reject the culture of death. We parry the unmerited claims that strong religious voices in public life run counter to liberal principles and America’s constitutional traditions. We are against tiresome claims about “the arc of history” and their threadbare second cousin, the outdated theological program of “relevance.”
I could go on. There’s a great deal of ruin in the contemporary West, and we’re right to oppose bad ideas and destructive trends. But if we define ourselves only by what we oppose, we risk losing sight of what we are for. The salt of the gospel gains its savor from what it affirms, not what it opposes. The same holds for the salt of natural truths, which ask us to say “yes” in addition to “no.” Opposition
to abortion arises from an affirmation of the sanctity of life. Rejection of same-sex marriage is rooted in our “yes” to the biblical vision of the natural and spiritual fruitfulness of the union of a man and a woman. In 2021, the FIRST THINGS editorial staff met on a number of occasions to talk about what we affirm—and how to bring those affirmations to life in our pages. Here’s a snapshot. We affirm beauty in art, intelligence in literature, and wisdom in tradition, publishing essays and reviews that bring before readers images, books, and activities worthy of their admiration: Gary Saul Morson on The Brothers Karamazov, Algis Valiunas on Charles Dickens,
FIRST THINGS is published so that we can assume our roles as leaders, an imperative if we’re to bring sanity (and perhaps a smidgen of sanctity) to our confused, disordered, and increasingly tense and anxious societies.
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FIRST THINGS
