Jordan Boyd of the Federalist details one conservative magazine’s stand against cancel culture.
Religious publication First Things announced on Monday that it does not plan to cower to the mob that tried to cancel a book promotion for “Feminism Against Progress” author Mary Harrington, who frequently tells the truth about biological sex.
In the span of just a few weeks, an online crowd successfully convinced a self-proclaimed “inclusive” venue in New York to cancel its event contract with the magazine. Mere days after the venue incident, a hacker tried to infiltrate and erase the First Things website, which boasts “nearly four million yearly visitors” and seeks “to advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society.” The First Things team thwarted that effort “within hours” but is already raising funds to reinforce its online security system against other digital ambushes.
“Attacks against those who hold the line for orthodox faith should come as no surprise,” First Things Editor R.R. Reno wrote in a letter on Monday.
Reno affirmed that First Things does “not intend to go down” or surrender to radical activists like authors such as Judy Blume do.
“We’ve observed enough cancelations to know that much depends on how the cancelée responds. You can capitulate with a groveling apology and wait for the swarm to move on, but it’s never the same after that. Not to mention, you’ve given the mob exactly what it wants,” Reno noted. “Or, you can stand firm, recognizing that the mob’s power is wholly connected to its ability to instill fear.”
Reno said First Things “will always” take the second approach and keep standing for “the truth of religious orthodoxy.”
First Things was scheduled to host an event with Compact and Harrington on April 26 at a lounge in Manhattan. The venue had already accepted a deposit and contract from the publications when an online mob criticized the venue on its social media pages for daring to host an author that criticized the left’s radical gender ideology.
