Heather Curtis’ Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicalism and Global Aid reveals the crucial role evangelicals played in the development of international humanitarianism at a time when the United States was extending its global power through economic expansion, military imperialism, and missionary outreach

From a liberal Augustinian perspective, Christians should affirm several liberal institutions, such as the separation of church and state, religious tolerance, and a number of individual rights. Beyond that, it’s over to the considerations of wisdom. And democracy, best I can tell, remains the best of the worst.

The role of the church during the Lebanese Civil War can serve as a case study of the active role the clergy can play in the Middle East to prevent forced migration of Christians to the West, and preserve their rightful place by resisting at home.

For now, let us cling to liberal democracy as a common grace of God. If God in his providence gave us modernity, let Christians be the stewards who use the freedoms of liberal democracy for the sake of the gospel.

As a sovereign nation with formidable military power, it is tempting to think that the United States can undertake humanitarian interventions alone. The idea is flawed, but understanding why some people still embrace it is crucial.

Even though people may not rely on universal human rights rhetoric to guide their specific decisions, Ignatieff argues that the structure of global human rights has contributed indirectly to global solidarity by providing a foundation for people’s ordinary virtues.

We would benefit from the unique and particular blend of the Greek and Roman inheritance with the dawn of the Christian age found in the work of Augustine of Hippo.

Orthodox Christianity does not demand liberalism, but it can provide an alternative grounding for a form of liberalism that respects religious beliefs and institutions more than the early twenty-first-century version does.

Liberalism, at least some version of it, remains the best option for organizing modern society. The real question is which version of liberalism is best. In this symposium, a variety of authors take up the idea of Augustinian liberalism.