Failure to recognize the religious dimensions in the present conflicts of Nigeria’s Middle Belt divorces us from the complex realities of concrete human life.

On November 10, Al Jazeera posted a breathtaking headline: “ISIS-linked attackers behead 50 people in northern Mozambique.” The subhead was equally horrifying: “Witnesses say the assailants herded victims onto a football pitch in the village of Muatide where the killings were carried out.”

For his countless acts of callousness and injustice, Baghdadi deserved to die, and I can be thankful that the world is spared from his terror without sacrificing my Christianity to say as much.

The most profound and powerful reasons for religious freedom are Christian reasons, and they extend not only to Christians but to all people. In my view this means that there is also a deep theological warrant for international religious freedom.

Even with a strong desire to grant mercy—truly undeserved mercy—Americans must energetically seek justice, even in warfare, lest we become like the enemies we seek to defeat: who are without America’s long tradition of rooting our laws in the laws of the God of the Bible.

Recently, Robert Nicholson sat down with Ambassador Frederic C. Hof to discuss the tragedy of Syria and American foreign policy in regards to the ongoing crisis.

It is sad to grow up and realize you’ve become a monster. The awareness does not change the fact that you are now a monster.

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.

All in all, American Power and Liberal Order is an excellent book providing a spirited defense of what has largely been a successful American grand strategy for the past 70 years. The big question remains whether the same framework could work for the next 70 years, or whether new external challenges and internal political changes call for a different approach.