- Update 1/23/09 - Kathryn Jean Lopez published an outstanding interview with Robert P. George of Princeton, on the life and legacy of Neuhaus. When asked what he would recommend to Neuhaus newcomers, George said:
I would suggest beginning with some of his great essays, such as “A New Order of Religious Freedom,” “The Idea of Moral Progress,” “ ‘Salvation is from the Jews,’ ” “How I Became the Catholic I Was,” and “We Shall Not Weary, We Shall Not Rest.”
- Update 1/22/09 - Chuck Colson remembers Neuhaus and offers comments on "Evangelicals and Catholics Together." A valuable bibliography appears at the end of his remembrance. 1/23/09 - Christianity Today engaged Colson in an insightful interview on Neuhaus and the future of "Evangelicals and Catholics Together."
- Update 1/13/09 - Three minute video of Neuhaus on manliness and marriage
- (Original Post) Richard John Neuhaus has passed away. I feel bereft. The world has become an emptier place, and a certain sadness fills my soul. The world has lost a towering figure, a penetrating thinker, a noble man -- not to mention an elegant writer. Yes, he was a Roman Catholic, but we Protestants benefited enormously from his perspectives on the world, and he understood us as well, since he had been a Lutheran. He was a pioneer in "Evangelicals and Catholics Together." See the National Review editorial for a fine summation (albeit with a few minor inaccuracies) of Neuhaus' contribution to the world.
John Podhoretz in his tribute called Neuhaus
"perhaps the most important and influential religious intellectual in the United States since the passing of Reinhold Niebuhr. . ." In 1984, he wrote the book for which he will be remembered, "The Naked Public Square" — a concise masterpiece about the role of religion
in a democracy and the danger posed to a democratic society in the notion that public life should be effectively atheistic.
Among his many endeavors, Neuhaus edited First Things, a magazine/journal on religion and society to which I am proud to say I have been a subscriber since 1990. It's a journal you don't throw away, and my shelves groan under the weight and space of all the issues. But what a marvelous publication! Of special interest to every reader was the last section where Neuhaus held forth with personal commentary on various items of the day. He called it "The Public Square." Mark Steyn (a writer I greatly admire) referred to it as "one of my favorite features anywhere in the world's media." He speaks for all Neuhaus' readers.
Cf. Neuhaus' essay published in 2000, Born Toward Dying.
Update 1/10/09 - George Weigle, another man I greatly respect, offers a tribute in Newsweek.