Marc LiVecche

Marc LiVecche is the McDonald Distinguished Scholar of Ethics, War, and Public Life at Providence. He is also a non-resident research fellow at the US Naval War College, in the College of Leadership and Ethics.

Marc completed doctoral studies, earning distinction, at the University of Chicago, where he worked under the supervision of the political theorist and public intellectual Jean Bethke Elshtain, until her death in August, 2013. His first book, The Good Kill: Just War & Moral Injury, was published in 2021 by Oxford University Press. Another project, Responsibility and Restraint: James Turner Johnson and the Just War Tradition, co-edited with Eric Patterson, was published by Stone Tower Press in the fall of 2020. Currently, he is finalizing Moral Horror: A Just War Defense of Hiroshima. Before all this academic stuff, Marc spent twelve years doing a variety of things in Central Europe—ranging from helping build sport and recreational leagues in post-communist communities, to working at a Christian study and research center, to leading seminars on history and ethics onsite at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp in Poland. This latter experience allowed him to continue his undergraduate study of the Shoah; a process which rendered him entirely ill-suited for pacifism.

Marc lives in Annapolis, Maryland with his wife and children–and a marmota monax whistlepigging under the shed. He can be followed, or stalked, on twitter @mlivecche. Additional publications can be found at his Amazon author page.

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they shall not grow old WW1 Peter Jackson
One Film to Rule Them All: Middle Earth Returns to WW1

Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old harnesses all the power of Middle Earth to celebrate the men who fought the Great War

Asia Bibi
Give Asia Bibi Asylum, Now

Regardless of the risks, every free nation in the world should be climbing over one another to be the first to offer Asia Bibi sanctuary.

World War 1 remembrance day
Remembrance (& the War That Ended Nothing)

A century ago, the Great War ended. Remembrance Day is an opportunity to recall those who fought, the fallen, and the costs and sometimes necessity of war.

september 11 terror
Lest We Be Reminded Again: Six Things to Never Forget about 9/11

Seventeen years ago, terrorists weaponized passenger planes and launched an unjustified attack against the United States. That day reminded Christians of things we must never forget.

Hiroshima atomic attack Christian ethics Zahnd
Moral Horror: Christian Ethics & Hiroshima

The attack on Hiroshima was a moral horror but not a moral wrong. As such, it reveals important committments that ought to guide Christian moral reasoning.

trump kim jong un
Reflections on a Handshake (Antesummit)

Was it right for President Trump to meet with Kim Jong Un? Christian reflection insists that politics cannot be separated from ethics. Can peace be separated from justice?

Memorial Day
Memorial Day: Just Wars and Remembering Those Who Fight Them

Memorial Day is an opportunity to reflect on the debt that the many owe to the few. Wars must sometimes be fought to defend the innocent, restore justice, and punish evil. When wars are fought, those who fight them sometimes fall. We must remember them.

Israel at 70: Independence and the Eleventh Commandment
Israel at 70: Independence and the Eleventh Commandment

David Ben-Gurion, who declared the establishment of the State of Israel 70 years ago this week, once mused that “God left one commandment out of the Bible. Perhaps the Almighty delivered this commandment to Moses, but Moses forgot to bring it down from the mountain. That commandment is No. 11: ‘Be strong.'”

Cattle, Pigs & Skunks (O My!): A Brief Reflection on the Religious Foreign Policy Persuasion

Christian theo-political witness has always contended that political responsibility cannot be had by seeking either greatness or goodness absent the other.

kavod good friday weight glory
Kavod!: Good Friday & The Weight of Glory

Christ’s sacrifice helps us to reflect on Divine glory and individual and national vocations.