For Providence readers, there are three topics of particular interest from the Prodigal Prophet’s second half: justice, politics, and patriotism.

C.S. Lewis, standing in an Augustinian stream, reveals the guidance found in the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian patrimony that has fortified Christian intelligence regarding the use of force since the beginnings of the church.

People acting to rid the world of injustice without knowing the darkness of their own hearts are dangerous, because they are blind to their own propensity toward injustice.

The most profound and powerful reasons for religious freedom are Christian reasons, and they extend not only to Christians but to all people. In my view this means that there is also a deep theological warrant for international religious freedom.

Cultivating the garden of world order includes tending to the tasks that uphold public safety, execute justice and promote human flourishing.

Is it possible for a Christian to love his or her country too much? Is America itself even deserving of a Christian’s loyalty? If Christians have anything to offer the civil kingdom, how should they go about it?

In a recent issue of Providence, several scholars presented a defense of liberalism that cited Augustine. Daniel Strand responds that many things about Augustine are not liberal at all and would probably set him deeply at odds with American liberal democracy.

While the just war tradition has typically focused on international conflict, just war logic has rarely been used to analyze the ethics of border security and border walls. This failure is to our detriment.

Christianity’s political theology tips its hand at Christmastide. What’s in the cards for world order? Tidings of a coming “Desire of the Nations.” Songs of how “He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love.” Promises of “peace on earth.” Juxtapose all this with our time, when trumpeting “America first” sounds to some like jingoist nationalism and to others like the return of national sovereignty.