Political Theory

In this episode of True North, Daniel Strand and Marc LiVecche speak with Elbridge Colby to discuss his recent National Interest essay, “Interest, Not Values Should Guide America’s China Strategy.”

In this week’s episode, the editors discuss Mark Tooley’s response to Sohrab Ahmari’s controversial tweet about a China-led twenty-first century and American decadence. They also recap Mark Melton’s conversation with Steven Howard about the 2021 report from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), along with an article about Pakistan’s justice system.

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.

“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.”

In this week’s episode, the editors discuss Richard Jordan’s “Where Are the Playful Realists?” Mark Tooley’s “Global Backstop for Democracy,” and Brian Stewart’s “The Syrian Revolution Turns 10.”

It is childish to demand the real world conform to one’s fancy; it is childlike to learn about the real world by playing in an imaginary one. Both the idealist and the cynical realist are childish. The Christian realist, by contrast, should be childlike.

I want to illuminate this conspiratorial approach, which I term “Christian Virtual Reality Politics,” by contrasting it with a more familiar approach, which I call “Christian Religious Politics.”

Mitchell’s contrast of wokeism with Christianity not only explains our confused and confusing times, but also showcases the truth, beauty, and freeing peace of the true Christian Gospel.

What if religion wasn’t waning after all? What if, instead, the language and categories of religion—indeed, even religious fervor—simply migrated to a different sphere of American life? In American Awakening, Joshua Mitchell argues that identity politics is ultimately a relocation of religion to the realm of politics.