First World War (WWI)

Browsing among the books, articles, and editorials of the past is instructive and exceedingly disturbing. One discovers the same concerns and anxieties as is everywhere apparent among thoughtful people now. Many paragraphs or sentences are as applicable today as they were then.

Memorial Day should remind us of a debt that we, as citizens, owe to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, and it is a call to action to appropriately honor those who have served in the armed forces.

It is because we desire the good of concord that we fight for a decisive end to conflict, one that secures and allows the enforcement of a durable peace.

A century after the Great War’s end, we still have much to learn from its lessons and still wrestle with its consequences and leftovers.

“There is much for the chaplain to teach the church, as well as much instruction to be received from the church.”

Charlie Laderman’s “Sharing the Burden” provides a thoroughly researched and highly compelling account of how the Armenian question acted as a catalyst for an emerging American-British geopolitical alliance and the United States’ rise as a predominant actor in the international arena.

We have an introductory, if provisional, picture of anti-Revolutionary foreign policy and Abraham Kuyper’s platform coming into the highest political office in the Netherlands in the early twentieth century. How did this platform fair? What “necessary adjustments” (as Kuyper called them) did he need to make between his Calvinistic international theory and the actual work of foreign policy?

1917 certainly is not a “one trick” movie, nor is it “soulless” or “bad” or “bombast” or a mere slice of cake. No, it is a work of art. It is a beautiful film. It is a deceptively deep inquiry into the value of life, the treasured heritage of Western civilization, and the importance of martial courage.

While much has been made of Abraham Kuyper’s Calvinistic contributions to domestic political theory, very little (in English) has been said of his foreign policy.