First Things

1 week ago | firstthings.com | R. R. Reno

War seldom ends according to a satisfying script. Unconditional surrender—the banner headline of 1945—is a historical rarity, the exception, not the rule. More often hostilities conclude in the gray zone of ceasefires, armistices, and grudging diplomatic arrangements. Israel stands in that gray zone now. Its defensive campaign against Iran and the Iranian proxy network seems to have primarily met its battlefield objectives. From a military standpoint, Iran appears to be defeated.

1 week ago | firstthings.com | Andrew Walker

The most famous Southern Baptist statesman of his generation, Adrian Rogers, remarked at the Southern Baptist Convention in 2002: “As the West goes, so goes the world. As America goes, so goes the West. As Christianity goes, so goes America. As evangelicals go, so goes Christianity. As Southern Baptists go, so go evangelicals.”Rogers’s statement is not one of self-acclaimed hubris.

1 week ago | firstthings.com | Larry Smith

You may find an version of this article in Italian by clicking here. How does an evangelical—not joined with the Church in Rome, but committed to one holy, catholic, and apostolic church—live and worship in pervasively Catholic Italy? Almost nineteen years ago, my wife, Victoria, and I moved to Cortona, a small but historically important town in Tuscany.

1 week ago | firstthings.com | Mark Movsesian

Last month, in one of the first liturgical acts of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, one of the four major basilicas of Rome. The act had great symbolic importance, not only because it affirmed Leo’s pastoral authority as bishop of Rome.

2 weeks ago | firstthings.com | R. R. Reno

The winds of Christian renewal are gathering strength. The Bible Society in Great Britain recently conducted a longitudinal study of Christian practice in England and Wales. The results are published and discussed in “The Quiet Revival.” Researchers found an increase in the proportion of the general population saying that they attend church at least monthly, going from 8 percent in 2018 to 12 percent in 2024. To some extent, the pews are being filled by immigrants. But that’s not the entire story.