It is because we desire the good of concord that we fight for a decisive end to conflict, one that secures and allows the enforcement of a durable peace.

A century after the Great War’s end, we still have much to learn from its lessons and still wrestle with its consequences and leftovers.

The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, was signed one hundred years ago this week. What is often forgotten is that this treaty—or better yet, set of treaties—did recognize and advance, albeit in a limited way, the religious freedom of average citizens.

Perhaps an insight from the character of Elrond in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, about the nature of our mortal lives, offers a measure of Christian realism in the face of Versailles: “And the Elves believed that evil was ended forever, and it was not so.”

Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old harnesses all the power of Middle Earth to celebrate the men who fought the Great War

The First World War was a clash that forever changed the world. The heroes of 1918 answered the call 100 years ago. Will we likewise do our part in fighting the good fight and fear not the darkness? 

On January 8, 1918 – a century ago today – President Woodrow Wilson mounted the rostrum of the U.S. House of Representatives, America’s inner sanctum of democracy, to deliver one of the most consequential speeches in history.