Isolationism

When it comes to democracy promotion, it seems the Obama-Trump era is the aberration.

This is an axiom, as true for foreign policy as it is for our faith. We may not be bound by history, but we are damned if we ignore it. The root of conservatism is the tendency to see value in traditions not as ends unto themselves but as visible reminders of the sacrifices of those who have gone before.

From the ashes of both Bryan’s ignoble isolationism and Wilson’s utopian universalism rose the school of Christian realism advocated by Reinhold Niebuhr.

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.

Christian clergymen of today typically prefer to disparage power and prestige as demonic ensnarements that Jesus shunned when offered. But Jesus exemplifies not the rejection of power per se but rather a godly deployment of it.

In this convicting article, originally published in Christianity and Crisis on March 8, 1943, Editor Howard C. Robbins decries isolationism as the ideology of less prosperous and influential times. He exhorts the United States to assume the responsibility demanded of a large nation-state and work to “end international anarchy.” Evoking the spirit of George Washington’s Farewell Address, Robbins pleads the United States to embrace a central role in international politics. Furthermore, he implores the American public to follow in Washington’s footsteps by shedding partisan politics.

The story of Christmas is a story of hope realized. God came to earth as a man in the person of Jesus the Christ, thus confirming the prophecy delivered to Eve, the promise given to Abraham, the kingdom foretold to David. And so, in that spirit, says Edward L. Parsons in this piece, Christians living through the Second World War should put their faith into action to help bring peace to the world. With the Prince of Peace as their savior and model, Christians can restore order and bring justice to their fellow image-bearers.

Pat Buchanan derides internationalists as dreamers disregarding his supposedly sensible neo-isolationist realism but advocates a nearly Utopian perspective.

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.”