Eric Patterson is executive vice president of the Religious Freedom Institute, scholar-at-large at Regent University, and a contributing editor to Providence. Among his books are Politics in a Religious World: Toward a Religiously Literate U.S. Foreign Policy and Ending Wars Well: Order, Justice, and Conciliation in Post-Conflict.
This essay provides a brief overview of the just war tradition and then applies the framework to the problem of contemporary terrorism.
Eric PattersonNovember 30, 2016
Christianity can provide us with a clear lens with which to scrutinize the Paris terror attacks. They were deliberate, unrestrained, unprovoked, and unlawful (extra-judicial) mass murder perpetrated by sadistic criminals on unsuspecting, legally innocent civilian victims.
Eric PattersonAugust 25, 2016
Religions, particularly the Christian faith that animated so much of US history, typically tell their adherents to pray for peace. A consortium of faith groups, under the umbrella “Evangelicals for Peace” has launched a thoughtful new year prayer initiative that anyone can participate in.
Eric PattersonJanuary 6, 2016
There are two ways to think about the November 13 Paris attacks. The first is that ISIS has taken a strategy to hit Western countries in order to pull them out of the game, to dissuade them from further airstrikes in greater Syria. The second way to understand this is as a strategic miscalculation that will raise Western resolve. Let’s explore both strategies and what is then likely to happen.
Eric PattersonNovember 14, 2015
