Europe

The German question has returned, along with the greatest foreign policy issue facing Americans regarding the European balance of power.

Hungary’s leadership in bringing the plight of persecuted Christians to the attention of an apathetic West should be applauded. Yet these good works should not obfuscate the problematic developments within Hungary.

As Americans become less demographically European, will American foreign policy focus less on traditional European allies?

For American Protestants used to the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom, integralism—the doctrine that the state should publicly support the Catholic Church and protect that faith—sounds strange.

If Brooks and others who are deeply unnerved by Trump aren’t careful, their warnings of destruction and doom can actually feed the fires of doom and gloom.

Providence continues to look back at how American Christians thought through the challenges of World War II 75 years ago. In this article that Christianity & Crisis originally published on May 17, 1943, Henry P. Van Dusen proclaims that the postwar peace would rely on international consensus.

The United States’ involvement in two world wars indicates clearly that American isolationism is at a practical end, Reinhold Niebuhr asserts in this article, originally published on April 5, 1943 in Christianity and Crisis. Working toward international integration is a national responsibility – morally and in the interests of security. Alliances depend on the will of their members; it is no different for the United States. Niebuhr also warns of a new danger: a unilateral “imperialist” American military establishment, simultaneously preoccupied with hegemony and unconcerned with the rest of the world.

In seeking the ultimate aim of World War II, William Adams Brown candidly reiterates in this article, originally published on March 22, 1943, in Christianity and Crisis, the enduring broadly applicable political truth that security is a precondition for democracy. Brown adds that while democracy is the superior form of government, it is best promoted by first reinforcing an inter-state international order. The mutual trust formed by open discourse is the basis of democracy; excluding illiberal forces from that discourse actively hampers the goal of spreading democracy.

“We must hate,” Lenin told his commissars. “Hatred is the basis for communism.” Rarely has an achieved ambition been so consequential.