Augustine’s influence runs deep and broad through Western Christian doctrine and ethics. This paper focuses on two particular examples of this influence: his thinking on political order and on just war.

We can make a clear and convincing case that the Christian tradition may support the idea that lies told for the public good are justifiable. When spies tell such lies in the line of duty, their deceptions fall into that category and, so, are justifiable. Can the same be said for sex in the line of duty?

In memory of Michael Cromartie, who passed away yesterday, here is his speech at Providence’s launch event in November 2015.

Jean Bethke Elshtain (1941-2013) was an American political theorist, ethicist, and public intellectual who made scholarly contributions to various debates, and especially on the just war tradition.

Against pacifist sentiment and calls for isolationism, Reinhold Niebuhr insisted on a realistic Christian response to political crises, one willing to dirty its hands to avoid catastrophic evil. However, his dialectic between love and justice produces a catastrophic paradox.

This article about the morality and justification of World War II and the Church was originally published in Christianity & Crisis in 1942.

Because the U.N. does not have the power of the sword, the U.S. abstention in the recent U.N. vote has not weakened Israel at all; it has weakened the U.N.

In the Christian view, the normative grounding from which the tradition of just war casuistry springs is the dominical command to love.

This essay provides a brief overview of the just war tradition and then applies the framework to the problem of contemporary terrorism.