After a tumultuous start to the post-World War II era and before the Cold War fully commenced, the board of supervisors of Christianity and Crisis issued a joint statement in December 1946 that tried to explain a Christian approach to international issues.

The underlying problem with the Declaration, in my view, is that it is absolutely necessary to understand power in context. Power and the questions of authority, legitimacy, and sovereignty itself are products of time and place—and those phenomena change fundamentally with time.

The most glaring weakness in the Declaration, by my lights, is the failure to reckon with and address the kingship of Jesus Christ.

We believe it is our responsibility to speak out at this time in order to provide a much-needed corrective to the current foreign policy debate.