** Daily Newsletter: October 3, 2025
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** In today’s newsletter:
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EPHRAIM RADNER: Bring Back Beautiful Sermons ([link removed])
MARK BAUERLEIN: Screen-Obsessed and Isolated: New and Notable Books ([link removed])
Welcome to the new and improved Daily Newsletter from FIRST THINGS. Our content isn’t going to change drastically—we’ll still bring you the new articles each day, straight to your inbox.
Now, we'll also connect new articles to the larger conversations FIRST THINGS has been leading for thirty-five years.
And if you don’t want to read all that, the new articles are listed at the top.
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** Bring Back Beautiful Sermons ([link removed])
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** Ephraim Radner
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From the October issue: “A sermon should be its own microcosm, taking in the world and presenting it back to us in turn,” writes Ephraim Radner in his monthly column. Drawing from St. Augustine, the “Church’s greatest preacher,” Radner argues that a sermon should not just contain one message, but tug on every thread that makes up the tapestry of scripture.
For further reading: In 2001, a revised biography of Augustine by Peter Brown, one of the foremost scholars of late antiquity, hit the shelves. In the thirty years between the first edition and the revised edition, manuscripts of forgotten Augustine sermons were discovered, which revealed “the living voice of Augustine the bishop, caught, in turns, at its most intimate and at its most routine.” The discoveries changed Brown’s view of Augustine’s sermons, which “now appear more as ‘dialogues with the crowd’ than authoritative utterances from the bishop’s cathedra.” Read “Augustine of Hippo: A Biography” here. ([link removed])
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** Screen-Obsessed and Isolated: New and Notable Books ([link removed])
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** Mark Bauerlein
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Contributing editor Mark Bauerlein dives into techno-pessimism in this month’s book column. He recommends five books about the threat of technology to education, peace among nations, book learning, and virtue.
For further reading: Last month, Mark’s column focused on spirituality in situations as varied as solitary confinement, choosing architecture in England, and taking children to church. Read it here. ([link removed])
Until next time.
Virginia Aabram's signature
** VIRGINIA AABRAM
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Newsletter Editor
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