What Future for First Things?

AmConMag: First Things & The Future Of Religious Conservatism by Rod Dreher

Given the history between Neuhaus and paleocons, First Things being discredited as an intellectually serious journal would not be a bad thing. And it does push for Judeo-Christianity as well as historically favoring neoconservatism and neoliberalism...

Dreher:

My point is that the First Things crisis — if you can call it a “crisis,” and I think you can — is not just a crisis for that magazine, but it symbolizes a broader and deeper crisis on the intellectual Christian Right.

The crisis is only with conservatives attempting mass politics and persuasion through mass culture. It may be that the exercise of rhetoric against opponents is more effective on social media, but are there any conservative, Christian intellectuals seeking mainstream respectability who are capable of the necessary rhetoric?

Catholicism is also a mess. The vision that inspired Neuhaus, George Weigel, and their team of thinkers in the 1980s and 1990s crashed and sank, and not just on the shoals of the abuse scandal and the Iraq War, and not just on the rocks of the progressive Francis papacy. The loss of the gay marriage issue was a crushing blow, because so much of the traditional Christian cause has been tied up in countering the Sexual Revolution. I don’t need to go into why that has been the case. You can read my “Sex After Christianity” piece from 2013 for insights, and you can read this excellent Darel Paul essay in the current issue of First Things, who explains that “queerness has conquered America because it is the distilled essence of the country’s post-1960s therapeutic culture.” If you had to summarize the mission of intellectually serious conservative Christians since the 1980s (as distinct from mere political activists or pietists), it would be to create a robust opposition to the country’s post-1960s therapeutic culture.

Do the Latin churches have problems, including a problem with institutional credibility due to their handling of the clerical sex scandals? Yes, with respect to Roman Catholics and non-Roman Catholics.

When conservative Christians start reforming their liturgy so that it no longer supports some form of moral therapeutic deism, maybe they can start getting their own house in order. But even if the Latin churches weren't such messes, could they do anything more than offer a religious version of civic nationalism linked to their adherence to the SJW line on some political issues, such as feminism? The Latin churches are plagued by the same errors that affect blue America. The Latin traditionalists are probably the most "traditional" with respect to moral and social issues, even if their political views are diverse, with some bordering on "reactionary." But the close-mindedness of Latin traditionalists with respect to their understanding of Tradition prevents them from forming the sort of alliances that would be necessary with non-Catholics, Christian or otherwise.

We failed. Michael Hanby, in a powerful essay published in First Things in 2015, explains why. Hanby indirectly summarizes the way First Things saw its role in fighting the therapeutic culture thus:

Broadly speaking, we may characterize the civic project of American Christianity as the attempt to harmonize Christianity and liberal order and to anchor American public philosophy in the substance of Protestant morality, Catholic social teaching, or some version of natural law that might qualify as public reason.

Christianity and the liberal order cannot be harmonized without Christianity turning into some heresy. Liberalism is opposed to the natural law, and cannot be harmonized with it. A quixotic task that could only fail. The "illiberal" intellectuals and academics are right in that respect, though they don't diagnose the problem correctly. Liberalism is a tool of the state and the elites.

What remains to be done is to figure out how to respond, individually and collectively, as theologically conservative Christians. The truth is, nobody really knows. I have proposed the Benedict Option, which is about holding the line within our own communities, but there are other responses. One that has found its way into the pages of First Things is Catholic integralism, the idea that there should be a closer formal relationship between the Catholic Church and the State, whose governing principles should be consonant with Catholic teaching. It’s an intellectually interesting project, but it presupposes a polity in which most people recognize the authority of the Catholic Church. In the United States, that is inconceivable, in part because Catholics are a minority in this country, but more importantly because in our time, not even most Catholics accept the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.

More promising are efforts by Catholics like Sohrab Ahmari, Patrick Deneen, J.D. Vance and others to reconcile Christianity with the new populism on the Right, which is forcing a deep rethinking of the relationship between the faith and economics. Like it or not, Donald Trump’s election has been the catalyst for this rethinking, which was long overdue on the Right. The great challenge lies in discerning and separating what is good and necessary about this reset from the problems of Trump’s character and governing style — if that is even possible, as a matter of practical politics.

The "New Right" -- which will probably be held in check as controlled opposition by gatekeepers and the elites. I find it unlikely that any sort of economic nationalist or "populist" policy will be enacted by Congress under Trump, even if he wins a second election, but if it happens, good. It probably won't be enough to stabilize the U.S. "Après Trump, le déluge."

For a magazine like First Things, it seems to me that the most important political question is captured in the so-called French-Ahmari debate. Simply stated, that debate asks whether or not conservative Christians should busy themselves defending the liberal democratic order within post-Christianity, and carving out a niche for themselves within it, or whether they should start building alternatives to that order. It’s a complex and nuanced debate, or should be. Personally, I believe there’s no long-term hope for Christianity within this order, so I would be happy in First Things devoted itself to being the leading forum where the question of post-Christian Christian politics worked itself out. 

There is no debate at all. The mainstream (neo-)conservatives are pretending that Christian moral teaching is important to them, when they just peddling liberalism, even if it's to a lesser degree than the SJWs. The neoconservative themselves will never capture the levers of power, though they will find some among the oligarchs who seemingly accept their ideals with respect to foreign policy and capitalism. But whether the neoconservatives are influencing the elites or the elites influencing the neoconservatives, you can judge for yourself.

Can any other religious journals step in to replace the role First Things seems to be abdicating? Who will fund them? Is there any constituency among the Christian philanthropic community for giving to such a magazine? Or is it all politics, and all Trumpism from here on out?

Though I am still a fan of Chronicles, it may not have much staying power either, as its pool of donors dries up as they age out. I think it is inevitable for any sort of journalism/journal-making -- it's unsustainable, both financially but also intellectually. A journal can be a review of arts and culture, as well as reporting and op-eds on current events (which is what Chronicles is, mostly, with some articles about history too). But the sort of practical advice that is needed to assist in a response to the current political disorder is rather limited, and can be better found in books or "treatises," which can lay out the applicable principles.

You can see my other recommendations for journals and websites at the right of this blog.

In the combox there is a recommendation for Plough, published by the Bruderhof, (Recall the interview with Stanley Hauerwas.) The Bruderhof can be considered an Anabaptist version of the Benedict Option. Dreher himself has considered the various Anabaptist groups as an instantiation of a fuller sort of Christian community, but I don't think he would go so far as to say they embody what he means by the Benedict Option. Given that those communities have reportedly had difficulty policing themselves with regards to sex abuse, and their pacifist stance which may prevent them from enforcing justice properly even amongst themselves, they are probably not the ideal.

D.R. Yoder on the Anabaptist Option.