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** Daily Newsletter: October 21, 2025
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** In today’s newsletter:
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HANS BOERSMA: Modernity and God-Talk ([link removed])

RAYMOND J. DE SOUZA: How Much Does Dilexi Te Reflect Leo XIV’s Thinking? ([link removed])

EDDIE LAROW: Gen Z Longs For Home ([link removed])

JOSHUA TOPHAM: The Civic Theology of Dallin H. Oaks ([link removed])

Welcome to the First Things daily newsletter, your guide to the ideas and events shaping our shared moral, cultural, and religious life. Each article we publish continues the conversations First Things has led for thirty-five years.

Stay with us as we explore the essence-energy distinction, Pope Leo XIV’s first document, Gen Z’s return to church, and the new leader of the LDS Church.

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** Modernity and God-Talk ([link removed])
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** Hans Boersma
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From the November issue: Modern man lives as though God does not exist. Theologian Hans Boersma traces this to the Western failure to adopt the Eastern Christian conception of the doctrine of double activity, also known as the essence-energies distinction. Without this distinction, there is no way to explain how God is simple and utterly transcendent, but not remote, Boersma argues.

For further reading: Peter Leithart has written extensively on the essence-energies debate. Read “Divine Energies and Orthodox Soteriology ([link removed]) ” (2006) or “Essence, Energies, and the Presence of God ([link removed]) ” (2015) for his engagement with other theologians on this question.
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** How Much Does Dilexi Te Reflect Leo XIV’s Thinking? ([link removed])
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** Raymond J. De Souza
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Pope Leo XIV released the first document of his pontificate: Dilexi Te, an apolostic exhortation on love for the poor. It was drafted by Pope Francis before his death, making it difficult to know how much of the work reflects the new pope’s thoughts, Fr. Raymond De Souza writes today. That Leo made little contribution to this document is evident from lack of reference to Leo XIII—his regnal namesake and father of Catholic social teaching. Leo XIII and John Paul II were unique in emphasizing the creative capacity of the poor to escape poverty. Most other modern popes, especially Francis, focused on social justice and redistribution. Dilexi Te is also within that camp.

For further reading: Shortly after the conclave, Fr. De Souza wrote about what Pope Leo may be signalling by his choice of regnal name in “The Two Leos ([link removed]) ” (2025), writing, “The new Holy Father made particular reference to Leo XIII reigning in a time of economic and social change; Leo XIV intuits that something similar is afoot, in another “industrial” revolution, this one driven by digital technology and, as the Holy Father has specifically mentioned, artificial intelligence.”
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** Gen Z Longs For Home ([link removed])
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** Eddie LaRow
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The youth coming of age today are unhappy with their share. This is evident from the obsession with analog and vintage aesthetics, but on a deeper level, in their return to church, Eddie LaRow writes. “Progressivism may promise liberation through perpetual movement, but it cannot provide a home. Traditional Christian doctrine can,” he observes.

For further reading: Editor R. R. Reno documented in “A Time of Revival ([link removed]) ” ( June/July 2025) the tentative Christian renewal among young people, whose monthly church attendance in Great Britain is up from 4 percent in 2018 to 16 percent in 2024. The Catholic Church in France brought in ten thousand catechumens this past Easter, half of whom were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. This reflects the thesis of his essay “The Return of Strong Religion ([link removed]) ” (April 2025).
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** The Civic Theology of Dallin H. Oaks ([link removed])
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** Joshua Topham
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a new leader following the passing of President Russell M. Nelson. Dallin H. Oaks inherits “the dual mantle of Peter and Moses” as both prophet and pope to the church’s seventeen million members, Joshua Topham writes. Oaks has called on his co-religionists to pursue peaceful compromise in the civic realm, but Topham argues that this does not equate to abandoning moral convictions: “He is not urging the dilution of Christian teaching on matters of moral importance but the application of Christian charity to political life.”

For further reading: As the LDS church grows more influential, orthodox Christians often have questions about their theology. In “Mormons Approaching Orthodoxy ([link removed]) ” (May 2016), Richard J. Mouw dissects the doctrine of eternal progression—that God was once human and humans may become gods—and whether Mormons actually believe it.

Upcoming Events
* November 2, 2025: A Night of Poetry with Ben Myers | New York, NY. Register here ([link removed]) . ([link removed])
* November 3, 2025: The 38th Annual Erasmus Lecture: In Praise of Translation with Bishop Erik Varden | New York, NY. Register here. ([link removed])
* November 11, 2025: The Future of Higher Education, a discussion with Mark Bauerlein and Mark Regnerus | Irving, TX. Register here. ([link removed])
* January 9, 2026: Second Annual Neuhaus Lecture at the New College of Florida | Sarasota, FL. Details coming soon.

Until next time.
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** VIRGINIA AABRAM
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Newsletter Editor
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