What’s Hot in Eternity

Some years ago, Andrew Sullivan was asked by Tina Brown of the New Yorker to write an article about “religion.” His description and observations:

“After routine flattery, she got to the point. ‘We have a fabulous issue coming up on religion, and Dick Avedon is photographing several religious figures and icons, and I wondered whether you could do an accompanying essay,’ she asked in her clipped, breathless tone. ‘About what?’ I asked. ‘Religion is a pretty big topic.’ ‘Oh, that would be up to you,’ Ms. Brown replied. ‘Anything that’s hot right now in religion. Anything hot.’

…It was the crazed cult of contemporaneity, the insistent, relentless outer directedness of an editor who saw what was hot as always and everywhere preferable to what is true, ... When a grown-up editor can actually ask a writer about what’s ‘hot’ in the questions of eternal life, the fate of the soul, and the meaning of existence, you have to wonder if, deep inside her, that’s all she actually sees.”

Ms. Brown is credited with “reshaping” the magazine industry.

And so we may not always be able to provide what’s hot, but perhaps what’s true.