Christian Ethics

At the Church of England’s General Synod last November, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby delivered one of the most rousing calls to a truly Christian realistic approach to the civil war in Syria and the rise of Islamic radicalism in recent memory.

Last week a delegation of delightful South Korean students visited our office.  They all stood respectfully when I arrived, took…

On the complex moral issue of war, one might expect to find a diversity of views in the history of Christian thought. Ron Sider disagrees. He’s wrong.

Just war aims at peace. As Augustine argued, “Every man seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace.” We do not fight war for its own sake, or for revenge, profit, or prestige. The only conceivable rationale for waging war is to create a world of better, deeper, more lasting peace than the one that led to war in the first place.

From the Print Edition

Historically, Christians have talked about the fall of Adam in conjunction with the origins of government.

Religions, particularly the Christian faith that animated so much of US history, typically tell their adherents to pray for peace. A consortium of faith groups, under the umbrella “Evangelicals for Peace” has launched a thoughtful new year prayer initiative that anyone can participate in.

In what follows I will first lay out some of the most important obstacles, the challenges they pose, their respective weaknesses, and some thoughts on opportunities they offer; then I will offer some thoughts on how best to bring Christianity into engagement with American foreign policy.

Some lament the fact that we live in such a violent world, but that’s precisely the point. Because we live in a violent world, governments must take steps to deter those who can be deterred—and neutralize those who cannot.