“liberté, égalité, fraternité”

After the deadly assault on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which saw jihadists execute writers, artists and janitors in retaliation for the paper’s publication of crude cartoons mocking Muhammad, the Paris-based publication is facing regular death threats. Freedom of speech is under threat.

In the dark days after the planes hit, the late political theorist Jean Bethke Elshtain mused to a friend, “Now we are reminded of what governments are for.” Sept. 11, she forever after insisted, made plain that “the primary responsibility of government is to provide for basic security – ordinary civic peace.” This responsibility is a divine mandate

This is a great story. A necessary story. It should be told to our children over supper. And every time we retell it we must, ourselves, attend to it closely for this story is also a greatly clarifying story. It helps to brush aside much of the twaddle that passes for contemporary moral wisdom, including within the Christian culture. But precisely what has it clarified? Three things, primarily…