Realism and the just war ethic both pursue war in certain contexts, so they can appear to be close cousins. But the just war ethic shares less with realism than realism shares with pacifism.

Albert Camus’ The Plague is a study of how the various townspeople relate to one another during a catastrophe. The book has always been good for reflection, but now it’s truly a mirror.

This week I attended an as always stimulating Trinity Forum talk, this time to hear New York Times columnist Ross Douthat discussing his new book “The Decadent Society.”

Though the Bible does not give us a clear schematic of how we are to order our political life, it does something more profound: it gives us a frame for all reality, history, and humanity.

Simon Polinder and Govert Bujis advance a new school of Christian international relations thinking that they call “The Amsterdam School.” Time will tell if this distinctively Neo-Calvinist international relations approach is possible.

Daniel Strand, a professor of ethics and expert in political theory, spoke about Christian Realism at Providence’s Christianity and National Security Conference in November 2019.

There’s an odd column in American Greatness, on the 30th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s prison release, lamenting the fall of apartheid in South Africa, which it portrays as a calamity negotiated by “conniving Communists in the ANC and their knavish collaborator, F. W. de Klerk.”

The realism in Christian Realism lies in the tension between the redemption and hope that the Gospel brings for a world ensnared in sin and cynicism, and the reality that sin and its effects are still pervasive and will continue to cripple and limit the possibilities for justice this side of paradise.

How should Christians respond to the killing of someone so monstrous that their death seems to be a net gain for the world, a victory for the goods of justice, order, and peace?