A number of friends and I find ourselves unable to commit fully to either side in the Sohrab Ahmari-David French debate. Here are three reasons why.

I welcome the effort to give nationalism more depth because one of the more maddening features of political debate over the past few years is the difficulty in nailing down what exactly the nationalist side believes. In that spirit, I have some questions for the advocates of National Conservatism.

While there are many nuances and side issues in the debate between David French and Sohrab Ahmari, the crux of the disagreement appears to be a general clash between two opposing political philosophies adopted by religious believers: Catholic integralism and classical liberalism.

What should Christians think of globalism and nationalism?

Today we see forces against liberalism at home and abroad. We need statesmen who understand liberalism and who can make the case for limited, representative, and accountable government.

If Michael Doran and Walter Russel Mead insist that Christian eschatology is relevant to American foreign policy, it makes sense to at least mention and analyze amillennialism and preterism.

Christians should remember this: any political theology that treats its own people as a divinely chosen political community treads on heretical soil.

Both the Jacksonian and Progressive persuasions that Michael Doran describes exhibit symptoms of secularized politics. Neither articulates a truly Christian view of politics or 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.