Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Ephraim Radner
A Culture of Parricide
Dear Reader, Can I be direct with you? War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present. First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings. But we can’t do it without readers like you. Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
The State of Ecumenism
I’ve been asked more than once of late what I think of the “ecumenical movement.” How are things going? Many years ago, I wrote a book called Brutal Unity (2012), about the challenge of Christian division. The title was not mine, but the publisher’s. I had wanted to call it “Division Is Murder,” and although this phrase appears within the book, it was thought too negative for a title and missed the thrust of the volume’s positive (!) argument.
AI Is Not the Culprit
I have a confession to make: I use AI chatbots. A lot. I ask them questions about many things, from fixing the dishwasher (accurate) to who wrote what when (less accurate). I even have them rewrite letters. I also watch baseball highlights on YouTube in the morning and listen to music on Spotify while I jog. I’m reluctant to admit this. I recognize that these uses of technology have dulled aspects of my habitual life: looking, paying attention, slowing down, wondering.
Goddity - First Things
The Nativity of our Lord—born an infant, laid in a manger. It’s an utterly strange story: The Creator of all things takes the flesh of and lives as a newborn human child. Christmas songs often take up this bizarre conception.
Temple Time - The Living Church
Daily Devotional • December 13 Hans Memling | ca. 1430–1494 | Music-Making Angels | Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen A Reading from Haggai 2:1-9 1 in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 2 “Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say: 3 Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory?
Know What Is Right
Daily Devotional • December 9 Christ Teacheth Humility | Wikimedia Commons. A Reading from Matthew 23:1-12 1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’s seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it, but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.
The End - The Living Church
Daily Devotional • December 8 David bringing the Ark into Jerusalem | Illustration from the 13th century Morgan Bible A Reading from Amos 7:1-9 1 This is what the Lord God showed me: he was forming locusts at the time the latter growth began to sprout (it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings). 2 When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, “O Lord God, forgive, I beg you! How can Jacob stand?
Anglican Imaginary
I have long thought that the Great Litany of the Book of Common Prayer represents most fully the originating character of Anglicanism. And “full” the litany is. It is a long prayer, composed in 1544 by Thomas Cranmer for use in a national emergency. It soon became part of regular reformed Anglican liturgy, incorporated into the Book of Common Prayer, to be said three times a week.
The Substance of Our Lives
While I was in college, the local priest got me to come along with him on his nursing home rounds and play old hymns on the broken piano in the community room. I would bang out “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” and “The Old Wooden Cross” and try to sing at the same time. The residents nodded or dozed; some hummed along.
Leave Joy Alone - First Things
C S. Lewis has never been my favorite Christian writer. I admit this sheepishly, given his stature. The virtues of his most influential work, Mere Christianity, are real. But I have always found this primer in the Christian faith a bit plodding and arid, without much religious élan. Surprised by Joy, on the other hand, is the title he gave to his autobiographical account of his conversion.
The Time of the Anglican Communion
Editor’s Note: This essay is part of an extended series, February 10-21, focused on the related subjects of the succession at Canterbury and the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals. The Nairobi-Cairo Proposals of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith, and Order (IASCUFO) is surely one of the most remarkable theological documents to emerge from the Anglican Communion’s working commissions in the past century.
What to Remember | Ephraim Radner
I had thought of calling this piece “Against Memory.” Hyperbolic, perhaps, but I had my reasons. I’ve started regularly waking up in the middle of the night, often for hours at a time. I’m told it’s common for people my age. I start mulling things over. Not just from yesterday, but from all my yesterdays, my life and the people in it. The night is dark, and thoughts tend to go in one direction: failures, disappointments, fears.
Post-Christmas Terror
What have we gotten ourselves into? Am I really a follower of the Lord of Christmastide? Christmas is rarely associated with baptism. Yet there is a sense in which the Nativity is properly seen as the Son’s initiation, even before his encounter with John at the Jordan. As such, our gathering at the babe’s crib should rightly be filled with unease. Perhaps I am just growing old, but this year more than ever, Bethlehem has made me tremble.
Baffled Joy by Ephraim Radner
Ihave long known who Mischa Elman was: one of the great violinists of the last century (1891–1967). But only last month did I finally manage to listen to him. He is dead, of course. But there are available recordings of his playing that date back to the 1920s. These are a bit scratchy, though his legendary honeyed tone and impeccable and elegant technique still come through. Later recordings are magnificent. His playing is transcendent. Or so it seems to me. But what am I actually listening to?
Machine by Ephraim Radner
The American modernist poet E. E. Cummings ended up as a somewhat lonely, politically conservative Unitarian. It happens. He wrote some glittering verses glorying in the natural world and its colored wonders, and would jot down religious thoughts here and there. “May i be i is the only prayer,” he once noted. This is perhaps a modern desire, one tied to many a young heart. I prayed it as a teenager.
Prayer in a Time of War | Ephraim Radner
I do not understand war. Even in the present time, for all my deeply felt moral and religious commitments touching on today’s conflicts, the reality of war itself seems to engulf my certainties. I am often at a loss for words and prayers. In 2018, I attended a church service in a small provincial French town outside Chartres. We were remembering the day when World War II ended. The speaker was an old man from the area who recalled what the last days of the war were like for him as a young boy.
Those People by Ephraim Radner
Sometimes I will exclaim, when dealing with irritating and difficult people on the phone, “What’s wrong with these people?” Actually I do this a lot, not just on the other end of the phone, but in the face of this or that author, car driver, or person standing ahead of me in the cashier’s line. My wife admonishes me: Nobody is one of “those people.” You’re slipping into the realm of the collective slur. It’s morally sloppy and morally corrupting. What do you really know about that person?
Coming and Going | Ephraim Radner
Disappearance is usually felt as something bad. When things disappear, we sense the pull of death, the call of the dust, the loss of the palpable good. I have recently been moving house after many years in one place, with all its accumulations. Things, often intimate things, are left behind, given away, sent to the trash, a landfill that sometimes feels like the biblical valley from which the smoke of smoldering fires rises, and in which the worm turns. Regret wells up.
Boundless Prayer | Ephraim Radner
A colleague of mine is extraordinarily productive: reams of articles, books, editing duties, institute-leading, fundraising. It’s the kind of performance his peers envy, all the more because lurking behind his energies and accomplishments are the realities of a troubled family: spousal illnesses, children’s suffering. I asked him once how he managed it all. “I’m good at compartmentalizing,” he said. Most of us are pretty good at compartmentalizing, if not so spectacularly. We need to be.
Hedgehogs, Foxes, and Other Thinkers | Ephraim Radner
Years ago, I spent a month with my family in Burundi. I had once worked there when still single. During this visit, my daughter took French lessons from a local teacher in the small provincial center where we were staying. At one point, M. Jérôme, the teacher, asked her why Europeans give flowers as gifts. “They’re beautiful,” my daughter said. M. Jérôme shook his head with exasperation. “That makes no sense. We like cows, not flowers.” People think differently.
The Intersection Between Our Lives and Biblical History
Now and again, some people ask me to mount an “apology” for, and explanation of, what many call “figural reading” of Scripture – an approach I have written about and been identified with. My main point, in response, is that I don’t really have to mount a defense, because figural reading is unavoidable for the Christian, whatever she or he may think, or even think they are doing.
Mortal Goods | Baker Academic
This book by one of today's leading theologians examines how Christians might more faithfully and realistically imagine their political vocation. Ephraim Radner explains that our Christian calling is to limit our political concerns to the boundaries of our created lives: our birth, parents, siblings, families, brief persistence in life, raising of children, relations, decline, and death.
Standing in the Cold | Ephraim Radner
Winter is a bad time. Whether for a season or for a life, it dampens the self. Or so a recent writer claimed. “Mankind endured a long winter of the Dark Ages” for a thousand years, “repressing” the human spirit in a barren season that lasted centuries. The human individual, as fate would have it, was at last reborn in the sun-filled Renaissance. One can trace this common claim at least to Jacob Burckhardt, the nineteenth-century Swiss art historian.
The Fullness of Time | Ephraim Radner
How long, O Lord? The question is posed repeatedly by the Psalmist. It continues to be posed across the ages, uttered even by our lips in the shadows of a dark season. How long must I suffer this illness? Drag through this labor? Bear with evil men? Did not our Lord himself wonder this aloud (Mark 9:19)? The underlying motive for such a prayer is often an instrumental hope: a plea to fix the problems we face.
Christian Urbanism | Ephraim Radner
Cities have figured prominently in the Christian imagination: City of God, City of Jerusalem, the Heavenly City. The single English word “city” has varied referents that easily blur our vision. But the image has lodged itself firmly into our religious politics. The “secular city” (a phrase coined in the sixties) is filled with excitement and divine vocation. “Urban ministry,” a passion of this journal’s founder, retains its ethical allure.
Canon of the Word | Ephraim Radner
One of the books that most influenced my moral and personal imagination was a small novel, Une vie de boy (“Houseboy,” 1956), by Ferdinand Oyono. An early novel by a great Cameroonian writer, diplomat, and civil leader, it made a minor splash on the French literary scene when it first appeared. The story briefly traces the mostly depleting experience of a young servant in a colonial household.
Stay Outside by Ephraim Radner
When I first moved to Toronto, I used to pass a certain office building on my way to work. The windows, main door, and wall facing the street were plastered with signs telling visitors that this space was scent-free, smoke-free, violence-free, a place where harassment and disrespect were “not tolerated,” where racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia were anathema.
Knowing Animals, Knowing God | Ephraim Radner
Should we care about extinction? We hear all kinds of numbers about this. At the top end, some claim that well over 10,000 species of life, animal and vegetable, are disappearing every year. This is exponentially higher than the “natural” (that is, not human-influenced) rate of species extinction. Among animals, in the last year alone, the world seems to have lost dozens of species of frogs, fish, bats, mites, birds, and more, never to be seen or known again.
Unmasking the Young | Ephraim Radner
One of the priests I most admire grew up on a farm on the Canadian plains. The virtues of farm life transfer well to the parish: discipline, hard work, showing up, getting things done on time, maintaining relationships, helping people work together. And, not least, a kind of straightforward openness that speaks plainly, honestly, modestly. Such qualities allow for a steady, comprehensive, and humane meshing of individual, family, and community.
Practice Without Purpose | Ephraim Radner
Not long ago, while in London, I passed by two street singers. A young man and woman, red-faced and with a smiling seriousness, were performing a version of the sixteenth-century song, “John, Come Kiss Me Now.” The small spectacle was wonderful: gentle, lilting, innocent, and mischievous all at once. I was captivated by their voices, and a familiar sense of joy bubbled up within me. Delight is among the greatest gifts. In fact, delight is what distinguishes a gift from a payment.
Unseen Worlds by Ephraim Radner
I am among the foremost skeptics of science’s pretensions. But I count myself among the first to express amazement and thanks for revelations that scientific work has provided—not so much discovering “new” worlds as uncovering hidden worlds. Consider the amazing event of January 14, 2005, when a joint European-American space mission landed a probe, known by the name of Huygens, on the surface of the Saturn moon Titan. It was the most distant space landing ever.
An Honest Magazine | Ephraim Radner
Resist junk food journalism. Support journalism that nourishes the mind and soul by contributing to our year-end campaign today. I had long been in search of an honest magazine. So have we all. And when we find one, we support it. Magazines, like people, can have integrity. They can focus on what’s most important; they can be faithful to their commitments. Like people, of course, a lot of magazines do not do any of these things. First Things does.
Against Genius by Ephraim Radner
This is the main road God takes to come to us: our recognition of our own ignorance.” So said Stephen of Muret, a medieval hermit and purported founder of the Grandmontine order of monks that disappeared in the eighteenth century. The idea that wisdom comes from admitting our own ignorance was long-standing. Socrates said as much. But Stephen’s version of the adage was radically Christ-centered.
Remembering Roy Radner, UC Berkeley economist
Roy Radner, who died on Oct. 6 at Pennswood Village in Newtown, Pennsylvania, aged 95, enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a teacher and researcher. Roy taught for many years at UC Berkeley, and is best known for his contributions to microeconomics. Most recently he worked as Stern Professor at New York University until 2017.
New Faith by Ephraim Radner
When I was twenty-four, I spent several weeks sleeping on the floor of the Brussels Salvation Army, waiting to start a French course. I was on my way to mission work in Burundi. I shared a room with a half dozen other men from various backgrounds. One, named Gershom, was a Romanian Jew, who had somehow fled his country and become a Christian. He was filled with strange ideas, fueled in part by having read recondite philosophy, and he argued incessantly with an Arab man who slept next to him.
The Last Lambeth Conference | Ephraim Radner
July’s was probably the last recognizable assembly of the Lambeth Conference we shall see in this generation (and perhaps the next). No longer will “all” the bishops of the Anglican Communion gather, but only some, and only from some places. No longer will the deliberation of the Communion’s bishops give rise to common teaching on matters of doctrine and morals. No longer will Anglicans around the world see themselves as engaged in a common evangelical mission.
October 2022 | Print Edition | First Things
From the October 2022 Print Edition Read without Limits. Already a subscriber? Click here to activate. Already registered? Click here to log in. Cover Cover America's most influential journal of religion and public life Subscribe Latest Issue Support First Things View by Year Year Sign up for the First Things newsletter Read all of First Things. Subscribe Today! Includes one year of print issues & unlimited web access. Receive our free newsletter
Speaking of Unbelief | Ephraim Radner
There has been a spate of reports on disappearing churches, waning faith, changing religious attitudes, and the ways in which COVID has affected the religious landscape. The numbers reported are probably accurate; there probably are fewer people going to church these days, with the number decreasing even at this moment, and in all probability the decline is gaining speed. The question is: Why? Here, academic and amateur sociologists rush in with glee.
Transfigured by the Word | Ephraim Radner
Toward the end of his short life, Anton Chekhov penned one of his shortest stories, “The Student.” Debates over Chekhov’s own faith continue; however, no one doubts that at the root of his soul sprang a human compassion that was without peer. He knew how to “weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). If he had a faith, it was somehow lodged in this preternatural sensitivity.
J’Accuse by Ephraim Radner
Bad reviews killed the poet Keats, so the story goes. Even though the tale has been debunked, it remains popularly repeated. We enjoy the éclat of unjust criticism, especially of the famous, even as we relish pitying the weakness of the oversensitive. The great film director Akira Kurosawa reportedly tried to kill himself after one of his movies was panned. The death of the writer Susan Taubes, an expert on Simone Weil, seems to have been linked to the thrashing given to her first and only novel.
Coercion and Conversion Therapy | Ephraim Radner
It was a great disappointment, if not exactly a surprise, to read a recent letter from British Christian leaders urging the U.K. government to ban “conversion therapy” for transgender persons. The signatories were calling for such a ban to be included in a proposed law aimed at protecting gay persons from efforts to help them change their sexual orientations.
Mirrors of Perfection | Ephraim Radner
Our society is confused about children. We allow their destruction in the womb and their manufacture in the laboratory, a contradictory denial and affirmation of their inestimable value that tells us a great deal about our strange times. In our cold calculus, we allow that children are necessary to repopulate the world. Yet children are not essential only because they grow up to be adults. Children are mirrors of God’s perfections.
The Table by Ephraim Radner
The Church’s Lenten disciplines have often been seen in terms of bodily divestment: giving up food, giving up passions, giving away money. Such attention is rightly meant to turn us to God. But we should beware of giving up, in the process, the table, around which our bodily life and needs find their transfigured purpose. The table is central to the gifts God gives.
It Is Enough by Ephraim Radner
The other day, I stumbled across a wonderful live recording of Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale), a small theater piece he wrote with the Swiss novelist Charles Ferdinand Ramuz at the end of World War I. I was suddenly flooded with memories of the elaborately staged production of the piece I played in as an undergraduate. Why I had forgotten this event for so long intrigues me.
Divine Micro-Climates | Ephraim Radner
The Baron de Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws (1748) has been among the most influential modern political treatises, not least in the United States. Montesquieu’s discussion of the “separation of powers” proved crucial for James Madison’s own constructive thinking about the American Constitution. The Spirit of the Laws, however, also contains an extended and detailed investigation of the critical role of climate in influencing a nation’s moral character, social life, and political culture.
The Praise of Color | Ephraim Radner
The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is open again. One has to book an entry time so that the museum can control the (tiny) crowds during the time of the virus. It’s hardly a fight to get in. Architecturally redone not so long ago with a steady but meditative touch by Frank Gehry, the AGO houses small but carefully curated collections of European and Canadian paintings, prints and photographs, impressive indigenous artwork, and an array of ever-changing special exhibits.
Dark Age Theology | Ephraim Radner
We are facing a Dark Age. In this new era, theology will need to be sparer, stripped of speculative distractions, courageously at home with death and the “other world,” and, most important, deeply engrossed in Scripture. Otherwise, the public face of the Christian faith will be washed away by the storm surge of our destructive culture. Dark Age Ahead was Jane Jacobs’s last book, published in 2004. Jacobs, who died in 2006, was a maverick scholar and urban activist.
The Tragic Atheist | Ephraim Radner
I painted to be loved.” That is how the artist Francis Bacon (1909–1992) described his impulse to create. Bacon’s work came to be part of the canon of late twentieth-century British painting, hanging in major museums around the world. His brutal images of contorted bodies, slabs of meat, and screaming popes, with their washed-out colors flowing away like diluted bodily fluids, are often linked to the nihilism of an atheistic, postindustrial existence.
Just Here by Ephraim Radner
A young friend of mine recently fell victim to an unexpected and horrific illness. For some time, it seemed that he would certainly die; the progress of the disease led expectations relentlessly in that direction. Prayers (including my own) for God’s mercy multiplied with a profound desperation.
Tending the Borderlands | Ephraim Radner
This article first appeared in the June/July 2021 print edition of First Things. I shall search for a garden where I can retire, and renew my spirit during this time filled with divorces, plagues, epidemics, and those other tribulations with which our present moment is so troubled.” So begins one of the more remarkable sixteenth-century treatises, “The True Recipe” (1563) by Bernard Palissy.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Ephraim
Contact Ephraim, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack