Christian Realism

A version of this book review of Timothy Keller’s Prodigal Prophet first appeared in the Winter 2019 issue of Providence‘s…

Is Christian realism enough? Providence, the magazine to which I am a contributing editor, had Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian realism very…

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

We need a return to a sober Christian Realism that appreciates our fallenness, the fallenness of the world, and our limits in shaping world events.

Two Christian schools of thought might support covert operations and espionage: the just war tradition and a kind of “dirty hands” moralism. The dirty hands view says all those in political power must unavoidably resort to evil for the common good. The just war tradition has a different approach.

On PBS News Hour, David Brooks quoted St. Augustine to criticize President Trump’s response toward the Saudis for the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Was Brooks right about Augustine?

Seventeen years ago, terrorists weaponized passenger planes and launched an unjustified attack against the United States. That day reminded Christians of things we must never forget.

As a journal of Christianity and American foreign policy, we wish to acknowledge the distinct contribution made by Sen. McCain to the advancement of Christian virtues in the field of American foreign affairs and American Foreign Policy. 

From the ashes of both Bryan’s ignoble isolationism and Wilson’s utopian universalism rose the school of Christian realism advocated by Reinhold Niebuhr.