Goodbye to New Oxford Review

The following is a letter to New Oxford Review, which used to be one of my favorite magazines. I welcome any comments about the magazine, even if you want to tell me I'm off-base.

To the Editors:

With profound regret, I would like to cancel my subscription to New Oxford Review. I have subscribed for almost a decade, starting a few months after my conversion to Catholicism. At that time, I found NOR to be a boon to my spiritual life, and I looked forward to reading every word of every article. The magazine had a literary flair and a spiritual depth that few other journals possessed; it was a gem, and it fueled my knowledge of, and zeal for, the faith. I reveled in the quirks and intricacies of your eclectic group of writers.

Over the last few years, you have published a few of my writings (one letter and several book reviews.) I enjoyed working with Jim Hanink, who was a good and encouraging editor. However, the change in tone and substance in the last four years has been hard to miss. At first, I was excited to see you directly engage the world, though I had appreciated the meditative tone of many articles. As time passed, though, I realized that NOR’s new doctrine of combative orthodoxy had morphed into intolerance. I don’t mean “intolerance” in the post-modern sense of calling falsehoods false, and rejecting the idea that all value systems are equal. I like that kind of intolerance. What I’m talking about is your willingness – even eagerness – to attack anyone who does not share your exact views on Catholic life and belief, whether in essentials or non-essentials.

Calling the faithful back to essential Catholic truths is a desperately necessary task in these times, and that isn’t what I’m concerned about. It’s that if these truths aren’t implemented in exactly the way you recommend, you want to cast the people you disagree with into the outer darkness. Instead of looking for common ground, you seem intent on finding reasons to bludgeon anyone who disagrees with you in the slightest matter. While we admire St. Athanasius for fighting contra mundum, he was forced into battle, and had the world rejected the Arian heresy he would have been content to teach and feed his flock. You seem to enjoy a fight for its own sake.

Take economics, as one example among many. Reasonable, faithful Catholics can disagree about the role of the state in economic affairs. As the nature of economics changes, the teachings of the popes will naturally evolve, though the principles underlying those teachings remain solid as a rock. To hear NOR talk, you would think that distributivism is the official Catholic economic program, even though the popes (especially the present one) have stressed that many economic models are compatible with the faith.

Other recent targets have included Father Richard John Neuhaus, National Catholic Register, and other orthodox Catholic persons and institutions. You’ve even started referring to them as “moderates.” For me, the final straw was that article attacking the leadership of a Catholic high school. Were there no Catholic nursing homes to beat up on that month? Even if the article was true – and it was sharply questioned in a subsequent issue – was it charitable to use your pages in that way?

Less important but still significant, NOR just isn’t that fun anymore. Reading it has become a chore, and as the magazine has expanded the writing quality has dropped. There are other problems as well – the tone of mockery has crept into far too many house editorials; the attempts at satire are strained and unfunny; and (yes) the ads in other publications have grown strident and tiresome.

I understand that you see your new role as a popularizer of Catholic orthodoxy, a champion of the true understanding of Catholicism. But whereas you used to cajole and convince, now you thunder and denounce. Who do you imagine will be swayed by this approach? Surely not the vast numbers of marginal Catholics, who will never pick up NOR. Our harried priests? The ones who agree with you probably already subscribe, and those who don’t will be put off by your new tone. You are only preaching to the converted, and paradoxically, your influence with English-speaking Catholics will continue to shrink as you attempt to increase it. Better that you should remain a small-circulation magazine doing much good in a quiet way, than a small-circulation magazine doing only a little good, loudly.

Please do not refund the remainder of my subscription; consider it a very small gift for all the years of good reading you have given me. If you recover your earlier voice, I will be quick to revive my subscription. I thank God for what I received from you, and I wish you well.

Regards,
Eric M. Johnson