Eric Patterson

Eric Patterson spoke at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia, about how just war thinking can provide analysis on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

What are we to make of France’s presidential election? More than anything, it points to the power of anti-systemic populism in French politics, whether on the Left or Right.

If order is the attainable and justice the possible, then (re)conciliation is the desirable. Conciliation is future-focused in that it sees former enemies as partners in a shared future.

When we bandy about “war crimes,” “assassination,” and other terms, we ought to consider what we are talking about and, if appropriate, what the available mechanisms for justice are.

The Institute on Religion and Democracy and Providence dispatch scholars of political theology to speak at Christian colleges, universities and seminaries.

Jus post bellum justice provides us with two criteria: holding aggressors responsible (punishment) and providing some form of restoration to victims (restitution). The reality of our time suggests a very limited justice.

Before taking a look at justice, let’s take a step back and consider the explicitly Christian foundations for thinking about political order.

The jus post bellum (the ethics of ending war and building peace) categories of order, justice, and conciliation can help us think through how the war in Ukraine should end.

How should democratic governments, as well as Christian citizens, respond to an Olympics held in an authoritarian regime that holds a million Muslim Uighurs in forced labor camps, represses Christians and other religious minorities, and has clamped down on the once-free inhabitants of Hong Kong?

The world is watching as Beijing hosts the XXIV Winter Olympiad. There is something about the Olympics that elicits national pride. But is sport a form of patriotic action?