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 me as we explore how Nick Fuentes is a product of critical theory, the Catholic Church’s immigration inconsistencies, and Peter Thiel’s interest in the Antichrist.
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In his column, Carl Trueman reveals how critical theory undergirds both wokeness and far-right figures like streamer Nick Fuentes, who has come under fire for anti-Semitism: “Committed to such anti-humanism in the present, these approaches make “truth” a matter of taste, something with no transcendent, binding content. Tucker Carlson’s interview with Fuentes is a case in point.”
For further reading: Trueman wrote a seminal essay against critical race theory in “Evangelicals and Race Theory” (February 2021), arguing that it has no place in churches even as the Southern Baptist Convention tried to reconcile it with Christianity.
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When addressing the migrant crisis, the Catholic Church typically emphasises the dignity of the migrants and nothing else. But in many ways, illegal immigration offends human dignity, John Grondelski writes. By dodging the question, the Church “makes an unjustified exception to a Catholic’s responsibility to obey legitimate laws, suggesting an anthropology that asserts that the only dignity at stake is the individual’s.”
For further reading: Consulting editor Francis X. Maier wrote last month in “The Church and Immigration Sanity” that while providing aid to migrants is an important act of charity, the Church often turns a deaf ear to the concerns of citizens. A senior border state church staffer told him, “They’re prioritizing the needs of the undocumented over the legitimate concerns of the faithful who built the Church in this country.”
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Listen: Tech giant Peter Thiel joined editor Rusty Reno on The Editor’s Desk to discuss his theories about the Antichrist and the end of the world.
For further reading: Thiel co-authored the wildly popular “Voyages to the End of the World” for the November issue of the magazine. He writes about a secret, esoteric debate in literature: “Will science summon or suppress the Antichrist?”
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Upcoming Events
- November 11, 2025: The Future of Higher Education, a discussion with Mark Bauerlein and Mark Regnerus | Irving, TX. Register here.
- January 9, 2026: Second Annual Neuhaus Lecture at the New College of Florida | Sarasota, FL. Details coming soon.
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Until next time.
VIRGINIA AABRAM
Newsletter Editor
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