Mercy need not run roughshod over prudence

The current controversy over admitting Syrian refugees into the country raises some very challenging questions for Evangelical Christians.

A Christian approach to the human catastrophe of the Syrian refugee crisis—partially instigated and immeasurably worsened by Mr. Obama’s floundering foreign policy—must reject legislation rooted in fear, bigotry, and nativism. We need a mature debate about how to respond with prudence and compassion to this crisis. Yet we also have an obligation to expose the intellectually and morally bankrupt arguments that cascade unceasingly from the mouth of this president.

After Paris America needs Muslims to show and tell how Islam enables them to be loyal citizens in a robust democracy as Muslims.

Guest Editorial: “It is excellent / To have a giant’s strength, but tyrannous, / To use it like a giant”

A year before America entered World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt shared his vision of “a world founded upon four essential human freedoms”: freedom of speech, freedom from fear, freedom from want and “freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.”

Given that Obama’s strategy is incoherent and will not work at achieving a specific goal, whether that goal is stopping ISIS or removing Assad, American voters should consider the three alternative options proposed at Brookings on November 16.

A memorial mass at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris for victims of the recent terror featured the French tri-colors illuminated on the altar. The organ played La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, prompting the congregation to stand. Some waved small French flags.

Leaving aside the rightness or wrongness of any particular policy, it seems clear that there is a deep division between the worlds of policy making and the worlds of moral reflection.