The Latest

Seventy-five years ago, the Samuel Goldwyn masterpiece “The Best Years of Our Lives” premiered to universal critical and popular acclaim. Reviewing the film now, two overarching contrasts between past and present are clear.

Even as they engage in this ceremony for the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day in Yerevan, there is a sense that this year is different because President Joe Biden formally recognized the Armenian Genocide, making him the first president to formally use the word “genocide” in connection to what happened to the Armenian community.

The odd thing about Bashir and Erdogan is how little they understand the West, and particularly the United States. There is no condemnation of America, its history, and its actions that foreign regimes can make that Americans did not make first, still make, and made more convincingly.

In this episode of Marksism, Mark Tooley and Marc LiVecche discuss Dan Strand’s Christian Realist perspective on the George Floyd verdict, a critical review of Jemar Tisby’s The Color of Compromise, and Ian Speir’s review of Andrew Walker’s Liberty for All.

“A Christian knows, or ought to know, that an adequate Christian political ethic is not established merely by conceiving the most ideal possible solution for a political problem. He must, in all humility, deal with the realities of human nature, as well as the ideal possibilities.”

The Color of Compromise ostensibly promotes a radical new way of approaching politics that rethinks everything about evangelicals and political engagement. But if you can look past Tisby’s critique of conservatism, all of the fundamentals of popular evangelical political thinking in the post-war era are still at work.

Imperfect justice is the best we can hope for in this life because we are not promised more than this. Until the reign of righteousness is brought about, we must be satisfied with this all-too-imperfect justice, looking forward to the day when all justice will be brought to judgment.

Christians must advocate religious liberty not just for themselves, Walker argues, but “with the conviction that true freedom means allowing fellow citizens… to freely exercise their beliefs with dignity.”

It’s now up to the Biden administration to decide if it will work with US allies to save the Middle East’s “last bastion of Christianity” or let it fall into the hands of Iran, Turkey, Russia, and China.