Reinhold Niebuhr

Europe’s Migration and Refugee Crisis: In Defense of Realistic Idealism
Europe’s Migration and Refugee Crisis: In Defense of Realistic Idealism

In light of Reinhold Niebuhr’s writings, a realistic idealism can provide a basic approach to the refugee and migration crisis in Europe.

Paradigm Lost: Book Review of Richard Haass’ A World in Disarray
Paradigm Lost: Review of Haass’ A World in Disarray

With his novel concept of sovereign obligation in A World in Disarray, Richard Haass makes an important advance in the search for peace in a disoriented world. But its advances fall short, unable to grasp the essential moral quality of world order.

The Failure to Protect: Syria, the Christian Church, and Humanitarian Intervention
The Failure to Protect: Syria, the Christian Church, and Humanitarian Intervention

The Responsibility to Protect owes its greatest debt to a religiously rooted approach to achieving peace with justice, the Christian just war tradition.

The Moral Underpinnings of Just Retribution: Justice & Charity in Symbiosis

The notion of retribution or punishment has long been the scourge of social science. Christian thinkers should develop the distinction between retribution and revenge or retaliation.

A Christian Declaration on American Foreign Policy
A Christian Declaration on American Foreign Policy

We believe it is our responsibility to speak out at this time in order to provide a much-needed corrective to the current foreign policy debate.

Geo-Gamechanger Derek Chollet Book Review Long Game
The Geo-Gamechanger?

Derek Chollet’s The Long Game defends Obama’s foreign policy and the president’s attempts to project global leadership in an era of infinite demands and finite resources.

Irony of Israel
The Irony of Israel

Everything about Israel was, and is, draped in layers of irony and paradox. Israel is a Jewish state. It is also a secular democracy. Israel is the resurrected form of an ancient polity that disappeared two millennia ago; it is also a modern, economically-vibrant society that embraces progress in astonishing ways.

Prayer Candles
A Holiday Prayer Challenge for World Peace

Religions, particularly the Christian faith that animated so much of US history, typically tell their adherents to pray for peace. A consortium of faith groups, under the umbrella “Evangelicals for Peace” has launched a thoughtful new year prayer initiative that anyone can participate in.

Augustine of Hippo by Sandro Botticelli
Christian Ethics & the Realm of Statecraft: Divisions, Cross-Currents, & the Search for Connections

In what follows I will first lay out some of the most important obstacles, the challenges they pose, their respective weaknesses, and some thoughts on opportunities they offer; then I will offer some thoughts on how best to bring Christianity into engagement with American foreign policy.