Abraham Lincoln

The Principles of American Liberalism

A Patriotic Review of The Religion of American Greatness: What’s Wrong with Christian Nationalism, InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Franklin Roosevelt and the Heart of Liberalism

Though the government cannot make us virtuous, our leaders can challenge us to be better than we often are.  

Send Comfort, Send Mercy - Russia - Ukraine
Send Comfort, Send Mercy

Now is the time for us to show Russia what kind of country America is. We can show the Russians and the world by sending our naval hospitals USNS Comfort and USNS Mercy to Odessa. We can provide humanitarian help the Ukrainians desperately need.

The Civil War Offers Public Diplomacy Lessons: A Review of Doyle’s The Cause of All Nations
The Civil War Offers Public Diplomacy Lessons: A Review of Doyle’s The Cause of All Nations

While most histories of the Civil War naturally focus on the drama in America, Don H. Doyle’s “The Cause of All Nations” explains how the conflict fits into broader world history and how events abroad affected the war.

Sympathy for Nationalists, but Little Hope: A Review of Samuel Goldman’s After Nationalism
Sympathy for Nationalists, but Little Hope: A Review of Samuel Goldman’s After Nationalism

Goldman responds to commentators who believe that Americans must return to some overarching identity and purpose. He argues that this task is difficult when the conditions that allowed previous unity no longer exist. Moreover, nationalists do not reasonably explain programs that could reignite a meaningful shared identity.

Erdogan’s Turkey and the American Guilt Gap
Erdogan’s Turkey and the American Guilt Gap

The odd thing about Bashir and Erdogan is how little they understand the West, and particularly the United States. There is no condemnation of America, its history, and its actions that foreign regimes can make that Americans did not make first, still make, and made more convincingly.

A President’s Prayer on the World War II Memorial
A President’s Prayer on the World War II Memorial

The Friends of the National World War II Memorial recently announced the charity had received a $2-million grant that will allow the inclusion of President Franklin Roosevelt’s D-Day prayer on the memorial site.

God’s Transcendence as an Antidote to Polarization in America
God’s Transcendence as an Antidote to Polarization in America

Polarization in the United States in recent years has both increased in intensity and transformed into a different type. These changes, in my view, are very dangerous for the future of the Republic.

Flawed Historical Narratives about American Figures Color Our Pursuit of Justice

Renewed debates over history reveal the narratives that conservatives and progressives employ to justify or decry American history. One narrative insists on lionizing historical figures, the other on demonizing them—yet both distract from the ongoing pursuit of the American ideals of justice, liberty, and equality.