The founders of our nation strove to embody disinterestedness. Rather than seeking personal gain in terms of economic benefit or advancement of your own faction or tribe, disinterestedness pushed citizens to seek the good of the republic and its wellbeing, thereby securing the liberty of the citizenry through participation.

Obama and Bush demonstrate the dangers of overly aggressive and overly passive foreign policies, but they share something in common: a deeply moral vision of America’s role in the world.

At any and every corner of personal and social life, the primary threat to human flourishing is the disordering of the human soul and social relations into self-centered, prideful, tribal, or sentimental factions. Chaos is a cancer that manifests itself within the soul of the individual and social relations when order disintegrates.

At the Church of England’s General Synod last November, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby delivered one of the most rousing calls to a truly Christian realistic approach to the civil war in Syria and the rise of Islamic radicalism in recent memory.

Historically, Christians have talked about the fall of Adam in conjunction with the origins of government.

Protestants have called the good of peace and justice that governments supply “common grace.” Why? First, it’s common to all people regardless of race or creed or geography. Second, and more controversial, it is a grace. Yes, it is grace!!

Leaving aside the rightness or wrongness of any particular policy, it seems clear that there is a deep division between the worlds of policy making and the worlds of moral reflection.