Columnist Carl Trueman considers recent cases in the UK where something akin to blasphemy laws have been enforced. “From the ridiculous yet sinister arrest of Graham Linehan to the refusal to allow a Catholic group to film at a holy site, the England that I knew is passing.” Trueman notes that the cases are selective and incoherant, symbols not of a positive jurisprudence but of a capricious repudiation of what came before.

For further reading: Earlier this year, Daniel Mahoney revisited a novel by another British Cassandra. “Roger Scruton’s The Disappeared, Revisited” shines a light on “ideological mendacity.” Also, for more on losing one’s inheritance for ideological ends, read Trueman’s February review about a church gutted by woke politics: “The Church of Empathy.”

Abortionists lie. Abortion supporters lie. They say that late-term abortions can only be performed under emergency circumstances. Jonathon Van Maren tells a very different story; “thirty-six-year-old Alissa Golob walked through the doors of the Cabbagetown Women’s Clinic in Toronto, Canada. She had two young children at home, $2,137 in her purse, and was carrying a twenty-two-week baby. The abortion clinic staff assured her that she could abort the child she was carrying up to twenty-four weeks; Women’s College Hospital nearby would go up to thirty-two weeks. She would have to pay cash. ‘Canada doesn’t have a limit, okay?’ the abortionist told her.”

For further reading: The upcoming January issue will tell the horrific story of Canadian doctors who don’t stop killing at birth. Keep your eyes peeled for “The Practitioners of Infanticide.” Also, Canadian doctors kill adults, too. Van Maren wrote “Canada’s Killing Regime” in 2022.

Listen: Rusty Reno interviews J. J. Kimche on the Editor’s Desk podcast. They discuss Kimche’s article from the December issue, “The Rest as History.” Approaching the Sabbath from Christian and Jewish perspectives, Reno and Kimche see modern trends like the tech fast as recreating Abrahamic devotional practices from first principles.

Kimche, an IDF veteran, professor, popularizer, and scholar of religious philosophy, will be writing a yet-to-be released newsletter for First Things in the vein of the Fourth Watch. His newsletter will be called “The Jew from Nowhere.”

For further reading: Valerie Stivers talks about her hard-won love for the Sabbath in the November issue: “How I Learned to Love Confession.” For a Jewish perspective, read Viva Hammer’s “Sabbath Alone” (November 2016).

Upcoming Events

• February 1, 2026: Second Annual Neuhaus Lecture at the New College of Florida | Sarasota, FL. Details coming soon.

Until next time.

JACOB AKEY

Associate Editor