What the Heck Is Going on at First Things? (Updated)

A number of readers of Catholic Phoenix know and love the journal First Things, a self-described interreligious “journal of religion and public life” founded by the then-Lutheran pastor Richard John Neuhaus in 1990.

Neuhaus was received into the Catholic Church in 1993 and became a priest, and the magazine attracted a number of prominent Catholic writers to its stables, including the late Avery Cardinal Dulles, the ubiquitous George Weigel, and the noted natural law theorist J. Budziszewski. But from the beginning, Protestant and Jewish scholars and theologians not only made appearances but also sat on the editorial board: Chuck Colson, George Marsden, David Novak, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Stanley Hauerwas are just a few of the more memorable names associated with the magazine over its 20-year history. Father Neuhaus died of cancer in January, 2009, and the talented young Joseph Bottum, formerly of The Weekly Standard, was given the editorship by the magazine’s board.

First Things has always stood for “a religiously informed public philosophy”, and against the alliance of militant secularists, Christ-haters, and self-censoring Christians who call for what Neuhaus famously dubbed “the naked public square,” an America in which not only symbols of Christian faith, but even arguments based upon its principles would be considered unacceptable in civil discourse, banished from conversation just like the Christmas carols in our schools and the nativity displays in front of the town library.

A number of us here at Catholic Phoenix credit at least part of our friendships to reading this magazine together and talking about it seriously. I vividly recall the day in 2004 when I first saw Hanson carrying a copy under his arm—love at first sight, my friends. Atticus and the Commish (remember when they used to post at CP?  I miss those days.) are also longtime First Things readers.

So we were especially perplexed this week when Atticus tipped us off: the magazine’s “masthead”, the on-line listing of editors and associates and staff, was suddenly and silently altered: Joseph Bottum, at the editorial helm since Fr. Neuhaus’ death, was gone.  Vanished. Without comment, announcement, or explanation, the masthead this week started listing James Neuchterlein as “Interim Editor”.

You’d think they’d taken HR and PR advice from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Or more charitably, from Ave Monaghan Maria University.

All the signs point to a messy divorce—an ouster of some sort, a stormy dismissal, a rancorous split vote of the editorial board, followed by a confidentiality agreement written by lawyers. The façade of Soviet-style silence on FT’s sprawling web site—where something like a dozen different blogs collect hundreds of comments per day—is imposing.

But as a careful reader and a keen fan of First Things under Fr. Neuhaus’ leadership, I cannot say I was at all pleased with the direction it had gone in recently. First, the magazine ran several tasteless and uncivil cover headlines, one of which rudely proclaimed “MITCH ALBOM IS AN IDIOT,” a gross debasement from the gentle critical wit that was Neuhaus’ signature. Then, earlier this year, Joseph Bottum proudly unveiled a redesigned FT, with new cover art, glossy color photos, and a crossword puzzle—and, not coincidentally if you ask me, an increasing number of articles that were short, glib, shallow, and had little to do with religion and public life.

The website, which used to be a simple 1-post per day by the articulate and restrained Neuhaus, turned into a noisy mess—a reflection of the fragmented and incoherent niche interests of a heap of assorted contributors, ranging from the high-minded and sober Archbishop Charles Chaput to the junior interns blogging about their favorite science fiction. The ranting incivility and shallowness of some of the regular commenters over there, including some who seem to have the time to write PAGES of comments daily, is the kind of thing that makes one long for the days when literacy wasn’t quite so widespread.

In short, the old First Things had a real editor—someone who set a tone and had a clear vision, a stupendously cultured, intelligent, and charming Christian adult (Fr. Neuhaus incidentally never earned a bachelor’s degree) who wrote like an adult and who made thoughtful, reasonable, faithful Christians and Jews want to write for him, and want to read.

Joseph Bottum was once a talented young writer for First Things. His autobiographical pieces on childhood holidays in South Dakota signaled the arrival of a major new talent when they first appeared back in the early part of this decade; his masterful 2006 essay “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano” (sadly locked away in the “subscription only” archives) is the definitive look at American Catholic culture and its tragic desolation between extremes in the 40 years since Humanae Vitae.

I think Bottum’s talents were best employed in writing intelligent, beautiful, and often very funny prose. He was a good writer unsuited in temperament and tone to the tasks of editing First Things, much as a brilliant and mercurial basketball player might make a terrible coach, or a powerful orator might make an appallingly poor chief executive.

So whatever is going on at First Things, serious Catholics ought to hope and pray for stability and prosperity for it. Our fragmented and confused and rancorous public culture needs the kind of charming, rational, and unified voice that this ecumenical journal used to speak with. (Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for First Things!)

(Meanwhile, let First Things editorial board member George Weigel be on notice: we know you are going to be at a Legatus event in Phoenix on Monday. Prepare to be wined, dined, and loosened with fine bourbon and a $30 cigar before Catholic Phoenix’s undercover correspondents turn the thumbscrews for some answers.)

UPDATE:  A prominent Catholic blogger close to the editorial board of FT has sent private correspondence to Catholic Phoenix suggesting that a “significant financial matter” was a factor in Bottum’s ouster. This fits with the facts of the last 6 months, in which the imperative to attract new readers for the print edition was cited as a reason for the aesthetic and other more substantial changes under Bottum’s editorship. Stay tuned for links and updates.

Share on Facebook

Some Related Posts at Catholic Phoenix

• Charles Portis’s Masterful Masters of Atlantis and the Importance of Lenten Joy
• Battling for Purity and the Souls of our Youth, Part I: Literary Mind Wars
• Losing His Religion–Scientology Style
• What the Heck Is Going on at First Things, Part II: George Weigel Sort of Says Something Encouraging
• The Loss of the Apostrophe in “Valentine’s Day”: One More Victory for the Forces of Secularization

Tagged as: American Culture, Books, Intellectual Life