Christian Realism

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.

China is ready to challenge American global leadership and the liberal international order itself. In Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?, Graham Allison argues that a war between the two great powers is a scarily real possibility that needs our attention.

Against the seemingly gentle assertions of pacifism, those who truly want to love in our world must understand there remains a need of coercion to maintain a minimum of justice and to preserve those innocents whom the unjust would ravage.

Video links to the presentations from the 2nd day of the Providence conference reflecting on the intersection of Christian intelligence and foreign policy

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

Every president faces a devil’s choice between stability and security on the one hand and our founding values on the other.

This provocative article written by Donald H. Stewart in the heat of World War II calls on the American Church to guide America toward a responsible patriotism which jettisons hatred and self-righteous aggrandizement while remembering “judgment belongeth unto God.”

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.