[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"archetype-name-map":3,"thinker-rusty-reno":100},[4,7,10,13,16,19,22,25,28,31,34,37,40,43,46,49,52,55,58,61,64,67,70,73,76,79,82,85,88,91,94,97],{"slug":5,"name":6},"anarcho-capitalist","Anarcho-Capitalist",{"slug":8,"name":9},"establishment-progressive","Establishment Progressive",{"slug":11,"name":12},"progressive-activist","Progressive Activist",{"slug":14,"name":15},"techno-progressive","Techno-Progressive",{"slug":17,"name":18},"patriotic-progressive","Patriotic Progressive",{"slug":20,"name":21},"conservative-democrat","Conservative Democrat",{"slug":23,"name":24},"moderate-conservative","Moderate Conservative",{"slug":26,"name":27},"reform-conservative","Reform Conservative",{"slug":29,"name":30},"religious-conservative","Religious Conservative",{"slug":32,"name":33},"traditionalist","Traditionalist",{"slug":35,"name":36},"national-populist","National Populist",{"slug":38,"name":39},"left-nationalist","Left Nationalist",{"slug":41,"name":42},"welfare-nationalist","Welfare Nationalist",{"slug":44,"name":45},"moderate-liberal","Moderate Liberal",{"slug":47,"name":48},"pragmatic-centrist","Pragmatic Centrist",{"slug":50,"name":51},"authoritarian-left","Authoritarian Left",{"slug":53,"name":54},"authoritarian-right","Authoritarian Right",{"slug":56,"name":57},"democratic-socialist","Democratic Socialist",{"slug":59,"name":60},"christian-socialist","Christian Socialist",{"slug":62,"name":63},"market-socialist","Market Socialist",{"slug":65,"name":66},"trad-socialist","Trad Socialist",{"slug":68,"name":69},"civil-libertarian","Civil Libertarian",{"slug":71,"name":72},"compassionate-libertarian","Compassionate Libertarian",{"slug":74,"name":75},"left-libertarian","Left Libertarian",{"slug":77,"name":78},"traditional-libertarian","Traditional Libertarian",{"slug":80,"name":81},"classical-liberal","Classical Liberal",{"slug":83,"name":84},"social-liberal","Social Liberal",{"slug":86,"name":87},"national-conservative","National Conservative",{"slug":89,"name":90},"neoconservative","Neoconservative",{"slug":92,"name":93},"techno-authoritarian","Techno-Authoritarian",{"slug":95,"name":96},"independent-thinker","Independent Thinker",{"slug":98,"name":99},"market-liberal","Market Liberal",{"thinker":101,"archetypes":122,"traditions":126},{"id":102,"slug":103,"name":104,"sort_name":105,"birth_year":106,"death_year":107,"nationality":107,"era":107,"one_line":108,"bio":109,"portrait_url":107,"has_portrait":110,"sort_priority":111,"is_living":112,"created_at":113,"updated_at":114,"search_vector":115,"primary_role":116,"secondary_roles":117,"notable_quotes":118,"historical_tensions":119,"plcf_score":107,"mesr_score":107,"dipg_score":107,"cult_score":107,"figure_descriptor":120,"figure_class":121,"editorial_review":112},925,"rusty-reno","Rusty Reno","Reno, Rusty",1959,null,"Rusty Reno is a post-liberal conservative whose First Things editorship turned a critique of the postwar “open society” consensus into a case for the strong loyalties of nation, family, and faith","R. R. \"Rusty\" Reno is an American writer, theologian, and since 2011 the editor of First Things, the journal of religion and public life founded by Richard John Neuhaus. Trained as a theologian and long a professor at Creighton University before turning to editing full time, Reno brought a background in Christian theology and moral philosophy to the magazine, which under his direction has become a leading venue for debates over the future of the American religious and political right. A convert from Episcopalianism to Roman Catholicism, he writes from within a tradition that treats religious commitment as inseparable from public and political questions.\n\nReno is closely associated with the broad movement often labeled post-liberalism, and with the overlapping current of national conservatism. His central argument holds that the dominant Western consensus after the Second World War—an ethos prizing openness, disenchantment, individual autonomy, weakened borders, and suspicion of strong collective loyalties—was a well-intentioned overcorrection to the horrors of the mid-twentieth century that has curdled into a spiritually empty and socially corrosive order. Against this, he calls for the recovery of what he terms the strong loyalties of nation, family, and religious faith, arguing that human beings need shared attachments and transcendent commitments rather than the thin, anti-authoritarian liberalism he sees as culturally exhausted.\n\nThrough First Things and his own writing he has helped shift a segment of American conservatism away from free-market and fusionist orthodoxy toward a more communitarian, tradition-minded, and nationally rooted politics, one skeptical of globalization and of the market's tendency to dissolve social bonds. This has placed him among the intellectuals sympathetic to the populist and nationalist turn on the right, and he has been a frequent participant in and commentator on those debates. He has also courted controversy, notably in his vocal opposition to pandemic-era lockdowns and mask requirements, which he framed as a symptom of a society that had come to prize physical safety above higher goods.\n\nReno's influence lies less in a systematic political philosophy than in his role as an editor and essayist shaping the terms of argument on the religious right. Supporters credit him with articulating why liberal individualism leaves people rootless; critics charge that his embrace of nationalism and strong solidarities risks illiberal or exclusionary politics. Either way, he is a significant voice in contemporary conservative intellectual life.",false,5,true,"2026-05-04T20:40:51.368746+00:00","2026-07-09T03:53:29.813841+00:00","'2011':47C 'also':340C 'american':42C,111C,273C 'among':312C 'anti':251C 'anti-authoritarian':250C 'argu':236C 'argument':163C,398C 'articul':407C 'associ':143C 'attach':242C 'authoritarian':252C 'autonomi':181C 'away':275C 'background':85C 'be':239C 'becom':100C 'bond':307C 'border':183C 'broad':146C 'brought':83C 'call':219C 'case':26B 'catholic':122C 'central':162C 'centuri':204C 'charg':415C 'christian':87C 'close':142C 'collect':188C 'come':367C 'comment':334C 'commit':132C,245C 'communitarian':286C 'consensus':23B,169C 'conserv':10B,438C 'conservat':160C,274C 'contemporari':437C 'controversi':342C 'convert':117C 'corros':214C 'court':341C 'credit':404C 'creighton':74C 'critic':414C 'critiqu':17B 'cultur':257C 'curdl':207C 'current':157C 'debat':105C,337C 'direct':98C 'disenchant':179C 'dissolv':305C 'domin':167C 'edit':79C 'editor':49C,391C 'editorship':14B 'either':429C 'embrac':418C 'empti':211C 'episcopalian':119C 'era':351C 'essayist':393C 'etho':176C 'exclusionari':427C 'exhaust':258C 'faith':35B,235C 'famili':33B,232C 'first':12B,51C,260C 'found':60C 'frame':358C 'free':278C 'free-market':277C 'frequent':330C 'full':80C 'fusionist':281C 'futur':108C 'global':297C 'good':374C 'help':268C 'higher':373C 'hold':164C 'horror':198C 'human':238C 'illiber':425C 'individu':180C,410C 'influenc':377C 'insepar':134C 'intellectu':314C,439C 'intent':194C 'john':63C 'journal':54C 'label':149C 'lead':102C 'leav':411C 'less':379C 'liber':9B,152C,253C,409C 'lie':378C 'life':59C,440C 'lockdown':352C 'long':70C 'loyalti':30B,189C,229C 'magazin':94C 'market':279C,301C 'mask':354C 'mid':202C 'mid-twentieth':201C 'mind':289C 'moral':90C 'movement':147C 'nation':32B,159C,231C,291C,420C 'nationalist':320C 'need':240C 'neuhaus':64C 'notabl':343C 'often':148C 'one':294C 'open':21B,178C 'opposit':347C 'order':215C 'orthodoxi':282C 'overcorrect':195C 'overlap':156C 'pandem':350C 'pandemic-era':349C 'particip':331C 'peopl':412C 'philosophi':91C,384C 'physic':370C 'place':310C 'polit':114C,138C,293C,383C,428C 'populist':318C 'post':8B,151C 'post-liber':7B,150C 'postwar':20B 'prize':177C,369C 'professor':72C 'public':58C,136C 'question':139C 'r':36C,37C 'rather':246C 'recoveri':222C 'religi':112C,131C,234C,401C 'religion':56C 'reno':2A,4B,39C,82C,140C,375C 'requir':355C 'richard':62C 'right':115C,324C,402C 'risk':424C 'role':388C 'roman':121C 'root':292C 'rootless':413C 'rusti':1A,3B,38C 'safeti':371C 'second':172C 'see':255C 'segment':271C 'shape':394C 'share':241C 'shift':269C 'signific':434C 'sinc':46C 'skeptic':295C 'social':213C,306C 'societi':22B,364C 'solidar':423C 'spiritu':210C 'strong':29B,187C,228C,422C 'support':403C 'suspicion':185C 'sympathet':315C 'symptom':361C 'systemat':382C 'tendenc':303C 'term':226C,396C 'theolog':88C 'theologian':44C,68C 'thin':249C 'thing':13B,52C,261C 'time':81C 'toward':283C 'tradit':128C,288C 'tradition-mind':287C 'train':65C 'transcend':244C 'treat':130C 'turn':15B,77C,321C 'twentieth':203C 'univers':75C 'venu':103C 'vocal':346C 'voic':435C 'war':174C 'way':430C 'weaken':182C 'well':193C 'well-intent':192C 'western':168C 'whose':11B 'within':126C 'world':173C 'write':124C,265C 'writer':43C","writer",[],[],[],"Editor, First Things","media-figure",[123],{"archetype_slug":32,"strength":124,"description":125},10,"The postwar \"open society\" promised a free order neutral about the good life — and Reno's critique gave intellectual shape to the religious, post-liberal conservatism that rejects that neutrality. When the neutral order feels hollow to you, this is the counter-argument.",[]]