For soldiers, the burden of having to do that which they believe to be morally evil is devastating. And according to the classic Just War tradition, it needn’t be.

This new journal, Providence, seeks to foster Christian and specifically Evangelical conversation about our moral duties as Americans in this place and time to seek, promote, and preserve an approximate justice with liberty for as many as possible.

On Saturday October 3rd, the United States military destroyed a hospital building in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing at least 22 people. Without question, even the accidental destruction of the hospital and the killing of the innocent remains indescribably awful- Was it an act of terror?

Bloom questions if conservatives rallied around Kim Davis would support an infantryman commanded by his Bishop to refuse orders in the Iraq mission.

In the dark days after the planes hit, the late political theorist Jean Bethke Elshtain mused to a friend, “Now we are reminded of what governments are for.” Sept. 11, she forever after insisted, made plain that “the primary responsibility of government is to provide for basic security – ordinary civic peace.” This responsibility is a divine mandate

This is not a blog about Sweden, but much of it will seem like it is. Recent Nordic events certainly warrant comment. Mirroring the larger European mood, Sweden, perhaps particularly so, is suffering some loss of confidence in the endurance of her own sovereignty. In an opinion piece in Sweden’s Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, the leadership of the influential Center Party neatly summarizes the reason, “We lack the ability to defend ourselves.”

This is a great story. A necessary story. It should be told to our children over supper. And every time we retell it we must, ourselves, attend to it closely for this story is also a greatly clarifying story. It helps to brush aside much of the twaddle that passes for contemporary moral wisdom, including within the Christian culture. But precisely what has it clarified? Three things, primarily…

It was a terrible anniversary. Seventy years ago this past week, at zero eight fifteen hours, August 6th, 1945, the Enola Gay, a U.S. Army Air Force B-29, dropped an 8,900-pound bomb, dubbed “Little Boy”, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later a second bomb, Fat Man, fell upon Nagasaki.

God can be loved and worshipped on the battlefield, and pacifism as opposed to soldiering stands as an exception to the Christian norm.