First Things is an ecumenical journal focused on creating a "religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society". The journal is inter-denominational and inter-religious, representing a broad intellectual tradition of Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 and Jewish

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 critique of contemporary society. Published by the New York-based Institute on Religion and Public Life, it is published monthly, except for bi-monthly issues covering June/July and August/September. Newsweek

Newsweek

Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

 called First Things "the most important vehicle for exploring the tangled web of religion and society in the English-speaking world."

Founding

First Things was founded in 1990 by Richard John Neuhaus

Richard John Neuhaus

Richard John Neuhaus was a prominent Christian cleric and writer. Born in Canada, Neuhaus moved to the United States where he became a naturalized United States citizen...

, a prominent Lutheran minister and writer, who converted to Catholicism and entered the priesthood

Priesthood (Catholic Church)

The ministerial orders of the Catholic Church include the orders of bishops, deacons and presbyters, which in Latin is sacerdos. The ordained priesthood and common priesthood are different in function and essence....

 shortly after the journal's founding. Fr. Neuhaus served as the journal's editor-in-chief until his death in 2009 and wrote a regular column called, "The Public Square." He started the journal after his connection with the Rockford Institute

Rockford Institute

Rockford Institute is a conservative think-tank associated with paleoconservatism, based in Rockford, Illinois. It is known for the John Randolph Club, and publishes Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture....

 was severed.

Influence

Despite its relatively small circulation, approximately 30,000 subscribers, First Things is widely considered to be influential in its articulation of a broadly ecumenical and erudite social

Social conservatism

Social Conservatism is primarily a political, and usually morally influenced, ideology that focuses on the preservation of what are seen as traditional values. Social conservatism is a form of authoritarianism often associated with the position that the federal government should have a greater role...

 and political conservatism

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

. George Weigel

George Weigel

George Weigel is an American author, and political and social activist. He currently serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Weigel was the Founding President of the James Madison Foundation...

, a sometime contributor, wrote that after its founding in the early 1990s, First Things "quickly became, under [Neuhaus's] leadership and inspiration, the most important vehicle for exploring the tangled web of religion and society in the English-speaking world." Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat

Ross Gregory Douthat is a conservative American author, blogger and New York Times columnist. He was a senior editor at The Atlantic and is author of Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class and, with Reihan Salam, Grand New Party , which David Brooks called the "best single...

 wrote that, through First Things, Neuhaus demonstrated "that it was possible to be an intellectually fulfilled Christian."

Editors and Contributors

Neuhaus died in January 2009, and was succeeded by Joseph Bottum. Bottum, who had come to the magazine from The Weekly Standard

The Weekly Standard

The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...

, served through October 2010, when James Nuechterlein returned from retirement to become interim editor. R. R. Reno

R. R. Reno

Russell Ronald Reno III is the editor of First Things magazine. He is a professor of theology at Creighton University.Reno is the author of several books, including "Fighting the Noonday Devil", a theological commentary on the Book of Genesis in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible...

, a professor of theology at Creighton University who had been involved with the magazine for over a decade, became the magazine's third editor in April 2011. David Mills

David Mills

David Mills is an American atheist author who argues that science and religion are inherently opposed to each other and cannot be successfully reconciled . He is best known for his book Atheist Universe which was published in 2004...

, who had been serving as deputy editor, became executive editor.

Contributors represent traditional Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

, and Jewish

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 viewpoints. Among the frequent contributors in the magazine's first year (1990) were Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon

Mary Ann Glendon

Mary Ann Glendon J.D., LL.M., was the United States Ambassador to the Holy See and is the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She teaches and writes on bioethics, comparative constitutional law, property, and human rights in international law...

, historian Robert Louis Wilken, papal biographer George Weigel

George Weigel

George Weigel is an American author, and political and social activist. He currently serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Weigel was the Founding President of the James Madison Foundation...

, and Lutheran ethicist Gilbert Meilaender. Others appearing included Peter L. Berger

Peter L. Berger

Peter Ludwig Berger is an Austrian-born American sociologist well known for his work, co-authored with Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge .-Biography:...

, Robertson Davies

Robertson Davies

William Robertson Davies, CC, OOnt, FRSC, FRSL was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best-known and most popular authors, and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", a term Davies is variously said to have gladly accepted for himself...

, Avery Dulles, later named a cardinal, Stanley Hauerwas

Stanley Hauerwas

Stanley Hauerwas is a Christian theologian and ethicist. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame and is currently the Gilbert T...

, Martin E. Marty

Martin E. Marty

Martin Emil Marty is an American Lutheran religious scholar who has written extensively on 19th century and 20th century American religion. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1956, and served as a Lutheran pastor from 1952 to 1962 in the suburbs of Chicago...

, Michael Novak

Michael Novak

Michael Novak is an American Catholic philosopher, journalist, novelist, and diplomat. The author of more than twenty-five books on the philosophy and theology of culture, Novak is most widely known for his book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism...

, Robert Royal

Robert Royal (author)

Robert Royal is a Catholic author and the president of the "Faith and Reason Institute", based in Washington, D.C.Royal received his BA and MA from Brown University and his PhD from The Catholic University of America. He has taught at Brown University, Rhode Island College, and The Catholic...

, and Michael Wyschogrod

Michael Wyschogrod

Michael Wyschogrod is a Jewish German-American philosopher of religion, Jewish theologian, and activist for Jewish-Christian relations...

. Frequent contributors in recent years have included many of those writers, as well as Orthodox writer David Bentley Hart

David Bentley Hart

David Bentley Hart is an Eastern Orthodox theologian, philosopher, and cultural commentator.Hart was educated at the University of Maryland, the University of Cambridge and the University of Virginia. He has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of St. Thomas , Duke Divinity School,...

, Anthony M. Esolen

Anthony M. Esolen

Anthony M. Esolen is a professor of English at Providence College and noted translator of classic works, as well as a popular writer for magazines like the Claremont Review and Touchstone, of which he is a senior editor. He has translated Dante's Divine Comedy, Lucretius' On the Nature of Things,...

, Mary Eberstadt

Mary Eberstadt

Mary Tedeschi Eberstadt is an American author and a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. She also serves as consulting editor of Policy Review, the Hoover Institution’s bimonthly journal...

, Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs is an American film director and screenwriter. He is known for directing Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists for Trimark Pictures, American Gun for Miramax Films and the independent feature Down for Life...

, Robert P. George

Robert P. George

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, where he lectures on constitutional interpretation, civil liberties and philosophy of law. He also serves as the director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions...

, and Wilfred M. McClay

Wilfred M. McClay

Wilfred M. McClay is an American historian, a noted conservative public intellectual, and SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga....

.

The magazine publishes articles every day in the On the Square section of its website. Regular columnists include Reno, Mills, Hart, Weigel, Leithart, Catholic blogger Elizabeth Scalia

Elizabeth Scalia

Elizabeth Scalia is the Catholic Portal's Managing Editor at Patheos, an online magazine that deals with religious topics. She also maintains a blog there, The Anchoress, formerly hosted at First Things magazine—when it maintained a more extensive stable of in-house bloggers. Scalia is now a...

, and the magazine's online editor Joe Carter

Joe Carter

Joseph Christopher Carter is a former right fielder in Major League Baseball who played from to . Carter is most famous for hitting a walk-off home run to win the 1993 World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays....

. It also sponsors a blog called "First Thoughts".

Governance

The magazine is run by the board of the Institute on Religion and Public Life, whose members include Jewish ethicist David Novak

David Novak

David Novak is a Jewish theologian, ethicist, and scholar of Jewish philosophy and law . He is an ordained Conservative rabbi and has also trained with Catholic moral theologians...

, Glendon, Wilken, and Weigel. First Things Advisory Council includes physicist Stephen M. Barr; neoconservative writers Michael Novak

Michael Novak

Michael Novak is an American Catholic philosopher, journalist, novelist, and diplomat. The author of more than twenty-five books on the philosophy and theology of culture, Novak is most widely known for his book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism...

 and Midge Decter

Midge Decter

-Biography:Midge Rosenthal Decter was born on July 25, 1927 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She attended the University of Minnesota, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and New York University....

; Jewish scholars Eric Cohen and David G. Dalin

David G. Dalin

David G. Dalin is an American Conservative rabbi and historian, is the author, co-author, or editor of ten books on American Jewish history and politics, and Jewish-Christian relations. He is currently a professor of history and politics at Ave Maria University, in Florida...

; McClay, an historian; philosophers Hadley Arkes

Hadley Arkes

Hadley P. Arkes is a political scientist and the Edward N. Ney Professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions at Amherst College, where he has taught since 1966.Arkes received a B.A. degree at the University of Illinois and a Ph.D...

, Jean Bethke Elshtain

Jean Bethke Elshtain

-Biography:She is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and is a contributing editor for The New Republic. She is, in addition, newly the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Chair in the Foundations of American Freedom at...

 and George; theologians Timothy George

Timothy George

Timothy George is the dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University and has been the dean since the school's inception in 1988. George teaches church history and doctrine and serves as executive editor for Christianity Today...

 (Baptist), Robert Jenson

Robert Jenson

Robert W. Jenson is a leading American Lutheran and ecumenical theologian.-Student years:Jenson studied classics and philosophy at Luther College in the late 1940s, before beginning theological studies at Luther Seminary in 1951. Due to a car accident he missed most of his first-year seminary...

 (Lutheran), Peter Leithart

Peter Leithart

Peter J. Leithart is an American author, minister, theologian and Senior Fellow of Theology and Literature as well as Dean of Graduate Studies at New Saint Andrews College and holds a doctorate from Cambridge University. He was selected by the Association of Reformed Institutions of Higher...

(Presbyterian), and Meilaender.