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R. R. Reno

R. R. Reno
R. R. Reno (2024)
Born1959 (age 65–66)
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
EducationHaverford College (BA)
Yale University (MA, PhD)
Occupations
  • Theology professor
  • writer
  • editor
TitleEditor of First Things

Russell Ronald Reno III (born 1959), known as R. R. Reno or Rusty Reno, is an American theologian, political philosopher and the editor of First Things magazine.[1] He was formerly a professor of theology and ethics at Creighton University.[2]

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Biography

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Reno was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1959, and grew up in Towson, Maryland. A graduate of Towson High School in 1978, after a year of mountaineering in Yosemite Valley, he attended Haverford College, receiving a B.A. in 1983. He began graduate study at Yale University in the Department of Religious Studies in 1984 and completed his doctoral degree in 1990 in the area of religious ethics. While in graduate school he met and married Juliana Miller, with whom he has had two children, Rachel (born 1990) and Jesse (born 1992, died 2021). He received his first faculty appointment at Creighton University in 1990, where he taught until 2010 when he took an extended academic leave to work full-time at First Things.

A theological and political conservative, Reno was baptized into the Episcopal Church as an infant and grew up as a member of the Church of the Redeemer in Baltimore, Maryland. As an adult he was an active participant in the Episcopal Church, serving as Senior Warden of the Church of the Resurrection in Omaha, Nebraska, from 1991 to 1995, as deputy to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1993, 1996, and 1999, and as a member of the Theology Committee of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops from 2001 to 2003. On September 18, 2004, he was received into the Catholic Church. He explained his conversion in this way: "As an Episcopalian I needed a theory to stay put, and I came to realize that a theory is a thin thread easily broken. The Catholic Church needs no theories."[3] During the COVID-19 pandemic Reno downplayed the risks of the virus. [4][5][6] He has since apologized for his comments regarding masks.[7]

Since 2011 Reno has been editor of First Things, a conservative Christian journal with a wide readership.

Fighting the Noonday Devil

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In Fighting the Noonday Devil: and Other Essays Personal and Theological, published in 2011, Reno writes essays that range from autobiographical renderings, to more admonitory arguments, positing that the sin of Acedia, rather than Pride, is the greatest spiritual malady of the modern age.[8]

Return of the Strong Gods

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In 2019 Reno published The Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West where he argues that The West’s rejection of “strong gods” — defined as “the objects of men’s love and devotion, the sources of the passions and loyalties that unite societies”[9] — in favor of openness and weak solidarity has created a spiritual and cultural vacuum. Reno argues that populism and nationalism are rising today not because of a return to fascism, but as an expression of the desire for solidarity, meaning, and belonging that the liberal “post-war consensus” has failed to provide.

The End of Interpretation: Reclaiming the Priority of Ecclesial Exegesis

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In 2022 Reno published The End of Interpretation: Reclaiming the Priority of Ecclesial Exegesis, where he argues for theological exegesis against other methods of interpretation: “Historical study of the Bible has a legitimate and perhaps necessary role in our contemporary context. But it cannot be sufficient for Christian readers, because its methods operate at a studied distance from what men and women of faith implicitly or explicitly regard as the most reliable guide to the truths of scripture – church doctrine.” [10] Reno states that “[theological exegesis] represents a deliberate choice by modern readers to align themselves with the interpretive framework established by the church throughout history, affirming the coherence between Scripture and doctrine.” [11]

The book received praise from figures such as Robert Barron, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and the theologian Ephraim Radner who in a review of the book wrote: “Reno provides one of the finest and most accessible modern apologies for traditional Christian reading of the Bible in the face of its contemporary detractors, an apology that is intellectually substantive and religiously appealing.” [12]

Works

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  • Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism and the Future of the West (Regnery Gateway 2019)
  • Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society (Salem 2016)
  • Fighting the Noonday Devil — and Other Essays Personal and Theological (Eerdmans 2011)
  • Genesis (Brazos Press 2010)
  • Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (with John J. O’Keefe; Johns Hopkins 2005)
  • In the Ruins of the Church (Baker 2002)
  • Redemptive Change: Atonement and the Cure of the Soul (Trinity Press 2002)
  • Heroism and The Christian Life (with Brian Stewart Hook; WJK 2000)

References

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  1. ^ "Masthead, First Things". Masthead. First Things. Retrieved August 30, 2011.
  2. ^ "Faculty Page, Creighton University Department of Theology". Faculty Page – Russell Reno. Creighton University Department of Theology. Retrieved August 30, 2011.
  3. ^ Reno, R. R. "Out of the Ruins". First Things. Retrieved June 18, 2014.
  4. ^ Dreher, Rod (May 12, 2020). "Rusty Reno Melts Down". The American Conservative. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
  5. ^ Silliman, Daniel. "Pentecostal Pastor Won't Stop Church for COVID-19". News & Reporting. Retrieved May 27, 2020.
  6. ^ Merritt, Jonathan (April 24, 2020). "Some of the Most Visible Christians in America Are Failing the Coronavirus Test". The Atlantic. Retrieved April 28, 2023. Consider the popular pastor John Piper, who was asked what he would say to pastors who claim that the pandemic is God's judgment on sinful cities and arrogant nations. "God sometimes uses disease to bring particular judgments upon those who reject him and give themselves over to sin," Piper responded. Or perhaps look to R. R. Reno, the editor of the conservative Christian journal First Things, who argued that it's not worth a "mass shutdown of society" just to fight the virus. "There is a demonic side to the sentimentalism of saving lives at any cost," Reno wrote, decrying the "ill-conceived crusade against human finitude and the dolorous reality of death."
  7. ^ https://firstthings.com/an-apology/
  8. ^ https://firstthings.com/fighting-the-noonday-devil/
  9. ^ Reno, R. R. (2019). Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway. p. xxiv.
  10. ^ The End of Interpretation: Reclaiming the Priority of Ecclesial Exegesis, p. 27
  11. ^ The End of Interpretation: Reclaiming the Priority of Ecclesial Exegesis, p. 6
  12. ^ https://adfontesjournal.com/member-exclusive/end-of-interpretation/
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