The following lecture was recorded during Providence’s 2017 Christianity and National Security Conference. Robert Nicholson argues that as we move into a new era of foreign affairs, many unprecedented and difficult challenges will arise for future statesmen. Nicholson asks whether young Christians are equipped to take on the mantle of global statecraft and discusses how future leaders can be prepared to engage in the international system. The following is a transcript of the lecture. 

Thank you, Mark, and thank you, everyone, for being here. If you have to go to the bathroom, it’s okay, I understand that. Mark, when we sat in some seedy DC restaurant or bar, I don’t remember, about three years ago, and you know, kind of said, wouldn’t it be cool if there was a journal for Christianity and American foreign policy? And here we are. It’s incredible, and thank you, Mark and the IRD team, for pulling this conference off.

It’s obviously a very timely subject and it goes right to the heart of the mission of Providence, which is getting Christians getting their heads around some of the difficult foreign policy challenges that we face today. So, I love speaking after Walter Russell Mead because he never says anything thought-provoking and I end up looking really good. So, no, it’s Walter’s incredible. Mark asked me to speak on young Christians and global statecraft, which is a little bit different from what I usually speak about, which is the Middle East.

Middle Eastern issues, all kinds of geopolitical and humanitarian questions, maybe that’ll come up in questions, I don’t know. But this is actually more, I think, in some ways, less of a substantive topic and more of a procedural topic in a way. So, you know, despite putting aside all of the difficult questions that we’re facing that we deal with in the journal, there’s a bigger question about the next generation of Christian leaders. We’re in an era where, entering an era. Walter said that the eschaton is here. Very ominous words, but I think he’s right.

And we’re in an era and going deeper into an era of international affairs that is incredibly complex and arguably more complex than ever before. Terrorism, the rise of non-state actors, the erosion of the state system, drones, killer robots, biotechnology, super soldiers, super weapons. Things and events that move faster and hit harder than they ever have in human history make the question of the next generation of statesmen incredibly important and urgent. From an imploding Middle Eastern order to an increasingly unsustainable situation in East Asia, statesmen of the future, and of the near future, will be called to make decisions more difficult than statesmen in the past ever have.

The question is, and this is the question of my talk, are young Christians prepared to take on that mantle, the mantle of global statecraft? Some are, yes, and I think I’m preaching to the choir. I know there are a lot of young people in the crowd, and I suspect you’re probably the good guys in this scenario. But there are lots of people outside this room, and it’s really, you know, everybody likes to talk about Millennials, the much-maligned Millennials, but I think a lot of what I say has to do with deeper problems in the American church, and hopefully we’ll get to that.

For those of you especially who teach and work with the next generation, I don’t know that any of this is terribly profound. I see my role here as teeing up a few issues and condensing things we already know, identifying issues that will hopefully come to mind throughout the rest of this conference. Because to me, if what happens in this room isn’t transmitted out, then this conference is a failure. Be thinking about these issues of the next generation as you’re discussing the substantive matters coming forward.

In thinking about this, I have all kinds of anecdotal experience working with young leaders. Philos Project, my organization, is at the heart of what we do—training young leaders, particularly on Middle East issues. But beyond the anecdotes, I wanted to look at data because I haven’t in a while. I found some interesting surveys about Millennial attitudes toward global statecraft. I didn’t want to take too much time, so I’ve just pulled some language from a Cato study in 2015 on Millennials and foreign policy.

What do they think? What are their attitudes? It was a thick report. I’ve pulled some things from the executive summary, three big takeaways about Millennials and foreign policy. This is not for Christians per se, but I think it holds pretty well. Cato found Millennials are more trusting than the generations that precede them. Millennials perceive the world as significantly less threatening than their elders and view foreign policies to deal with potential threats with much less urgency.

Cato also found Millennials tend to be inclined toward collaboration. Millennials are more supportive of international cooperation than prior generations. For example, they are far more likely to see China as a partner than a rival and to believe cooperation rather than confrontation with China is the appropriate strategy for the U.S. Finally, non-interventionist Millennials are far less supportive of the use of military force and may have internalized the permanent case of “Iraq aversion,” which I think I’m going to come back to soon.

If you work with Millennials, you know that is true. They tend to be more trusting, less worried about terrorism. They tend to be much more inclined toward liberal internationalism, working through international institutions, and tend to be non-interventionist. I’ve added a few things based on my own experience, and maybe in question time others can add their thoughts. Other things I’ve noticed with the young generation—and by the way, whenever I say young generation, that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people beyond that generation who feel the same way.

In fact, I find Millennials are not unique in this. One of the big things I find in talking about U.S. policy in the Middle East is a deep cynicism for power. Deep cynicism surrounding states working with the old standby states, you know, Britain, Israel, kind of the Western powers we’ve worked with, tend to rate much lower in Millennial opinions than other states they would prefer to reach out to. But on the whole, there’s a deep skepticism that states can do anything right.

States maybe make it worse, and the idea that we as a state are going to do something in another part of the world doesn’t automatically mean we’re going to do something right. In fact, I think there’s an opinion among many that we just screw everything up. The more we get involved, the worse it gets. States just don’t know how to do things correctly. And yet, while there’s cynicism for power and states, there’s deep idealism for human beings. Millennials tend to be very concerned about people, about individuals, people who are suffering, much more, I think, than generations older than them.

Whether it’s Syrian refugees or people starving in this part of the world or that part of the world, Millennials, while not believing that we as a U.S. government can do much, tend to be very concerned and want to do something. There’s a deep discomfort with gray areas in foreign policy. I think all people are not very good at nuance when looking at world affairs. They tend toward one pole or the other. Especially for Christians, the idea that you have to work with some people who may have warts.

We have to work with Saudi Arabia notwithstanding the fact Saudi Arabia isn’t all that free and is opposed in a deep way to many principles we hold dear. But because it’s a stable country in an unstable region, we should probably work with them. That idea, for many young Christians, is very problematic, and they tend to want to cut them off and say, look, they’re against human rights. I’m for human rights. Saudi Arabia is not our friend. Let’s not work with them.

And this idea of gray areas Walter identified—there’s a lot of foreign policy and statesmanship in the gray zone. For many Christians, that’s very difficult. There’s also, and this goes with the states’ issue, a strong desire for justice but not much interest in law or rule of law. Everybody wants justice, but few are interested in the legal or political structures that ensure justice is procured. States, borders, and all these things sound oppressive and anachronistic for many Millennials.

For many, especially today, and I encounter this all the time, there’s a disbelief in America. Many wouldn’t admit it, but it underlies much of their thinking. It goes further into a disbelief in the West. For many, or at least some, there’s a disbelief—not in Christianity, because they’re very Christian—but in Christians as a force for good in the world.

One issue I work on is supporting and defending Christians in the Middle East. I find many young Christians prefer working with almost any other community in the Middle East apart from Christians. They rush to help beleaguered communities or certain Muslim sects, but to suggest helping Christians is hard for some to accept. As crazy as that sounds, it’s because Christians are seen as Western colonialists. Even though Middle Eastern Christians are suffering, they’re seen as Christians too, and maybe on the wrong side of issues like we’ve been in the recent past. There’s almost a shame. Syrian Muslim refugees are a popular issue. Iraqi Christians? It’s less appealing, and many don’t want to work on it.

Many believe our culture and civilization are deeply problematic and that other cultures have it together. If only we were like Sweden or similar countries. At the bottom of it all is a distorted view of Christianity. A reductionist, minimalist view of Jesus and justice drives much of their thinking.

They’re very committed in their faith, many of these young leaders, and they want to be like Jesus, but they take Jesus out of his historical and theological context. So why is this the situation? Part of it, as with any community, Christian or not, is generational change. One generation grows up; the next rises up, wants to kill the sacred cows, and opposes what mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa were.

There’s also the issue of experience. We’ve all grown up metaphorically in a good neighborhood. Surrounded by oceans, the world is more or less at peace. There is terrorism, but we’re not facing the cataclysmic thermonuclear annihilation a previous generation endured. When you grow up in a good neighborhood, it’s hard to imagine life in a bad one. This trusting attitude, this assumption of the best in people, flows from that context.

America is arguably at its peak—safer, more prosperous than ever before. It’s hard to get outside that and see life in other parts of the world. What many miss, old and young, is that the guarantor of world order has been American power. You don’t see it unless it disappears. In the meantime, you assume the world hums along on its own. Your experience tells you the world without America could be great. Whether or not we’re involved abroad, the world works—an assumption.

A big issue, even for people my age and younger, is the collective memory of America since 9/11, particularly after 2003 with the Iraq War. It’s a deeply repressed trauma. For young Christian leaders, foreign policy is seen through the lens of the Iraq War, much like the generation that grew up with Vietnam.

The idea is we went on an escapade, didn’t do it well, and made it much worse. The global war on terrorism offers no wins. It looks like we keep fighting, killing, invading, and aren’t getting anywhere. It’s exacerbating the problem.

For many young Christians, this is the norm of their international experience. The U.S. in the world is hapless and counterproductive, a bull in a china shop. They haven’t had a big win on the international stage. That drives much of their thinking about American engagement abroad.

There’s the digital side of things. We are now exposed to more points of view, more lives than any previous generation. We see what people are doing all across the world. Although this generation is in some senses the most self-centered, as many have written, in other ways, it is the most aware of its insignificance among billions on Facebook.

Watching these lives, reading these posts, and seeing different perspectives can be disorienting. It unmakes the confidence and belief in one’s own point of view that previous generations had because they had a more isolated experience. We could talk for hours about the problem of the American Academy and how it discusses foreign affairs.

I see Joe Laconte in the audience, my friend Joe, who, working in the American Academy, tries hard to address these issues in his class. His students come in with all these points of view. Joe has tried to build a real understanding of what America has done in the world and could do. Outside of Joe’s class, and hopefully many others, the situation is the opposite.

Students are convinced the U.S. is a force for bad. I think, again, it’s a problem of the American church. There are plenty of great churches, so this isn’t a jeremiad against the church, but the kind of Christianity being taught and promoted in the American church today tends to be much more individualistic, softer, and more user-friendly.

It is politically correct and, at the same time, kind of apolitical. I could tell anecdotes about young Christians saying, “I’m a Christian, so I don’t do politics. I don’t do foreign policy. That’s for secular people. We as Christians are supposed to do missions or bring blankets to parts of the world. We’re supposed to be like Jesus. Let Caesar do what Caesar does. It’s not for the church.”

This apolitical thinking has infected many people and convinced them that Christians don’t engage with foreign policy. Good Christians don’t mess with these issues—they focus on the gospel. While that point is true, it’s stressed so much that people discount political questions of the day.

I think about these issues and how to address them. I’ve listed a few proposed solutions. What do we do if this is the case? What are the suggestions for moving forward? What do young Christian leaders need?

I suspect we’ll hear answers in question time as well. What do they need? I think it’s fair to argue they just need to grow up, get married, have kids, pay the light bill, and mow the lawn. Once you grow up and get married, you realize the world isn’t what you thought it was. If you polled the young generation in 1968, you’d probably hear similar things to what I’m saying now. That generation shifted, and Millennials have taken their place. A fair critique is, “Just give them time. It’ll be fine.”

Another issue, not just with Millennials but in general among Christians interested in international affairs, is the gap in historical, linguistic, and cultural knowledge about the parts of the world they want to work on. Many people come to Philos and say, “The Middle East is so cool. I’d love to work on it. Can I go on your trip or your Leadership Institute?” My question back is, “What time have you invested in this part of the world?”

This region is unique historically, culturally, and linguistically. Have you studied any of the languages? Do you know anything about the last hundred years? I can’t teach you everything about the region in a week. The answer almost always is no. Many young people want to work in international affairs but don’t know any languages beyond high school Spanish.

They assume they can parachute in and out of conflict zones and be like Jesus without understanding what’s going on. The disappearance of area studies from universities is a huge problem. When it comes to future statesmen, if they don’t understand different parts of the world, we’re in trouble. Training young Christian leaders on foreign policy tends to emphasize theories like realism versus constructivism.

These overarching theories about how the world works aren’t the most useful things to teach someone going into statesmanship. I was in Lebanon recently, speaking to a man about the political situation there. I asked, “Who are the politicians you respect, especially in the Christian community, and why do you respect them?” He said, “Nobody, they’re all bad.”

But when asked about the qualities of a leader, he said, “Unlike the West, we don’t have these big overarching political theories. We’re managing, making do in a fragile country made up of groups that don’t always like each other.” The best leaders manage conflict between these parties. This difference between the West and the Middle East was striking.

If we’re training future statesmen, we should focus less on big theories and more on ethics, ethical decision-making, and situational decision-making. Fewer giant books on international theory, more word problems. For example, the Kurdish regional government voted on independence recently. This presents difficult issues for an American and an American Christian about how to respond.

That’s a word problem. We should train young people to look at the situation, take all factors into account, and make a decision or take a position. Current training doesn’t provide enough situational decision-making wisdom. Wisdom is what we should pursue.

Better theology is also important, not just in statesmanship training but in the church. This ongoing issue needs to be addressed. We need better theology about human nature, sin, and disorder. Although sin is key to our idea of redemption, we often don’t connect sin and disorder in our hearts with sin and disorder in the world.

Another theological point is God’s role for government. Mark has been writing about this lately, and it can’t be stressed enough. People, young and old, think governments are bad and churches are good. NGOs are good, and states are bad. This misses a key part of how Christianity views the state as an imperfect but divinely ordained instrument of human affairs.

Our churches don’t talk about this enough. We don’t need a ten-part sermon on how it works, but pastors should make the point that, despite politicians’ faults and state failures, government is an important part of human life. We need to respect, engage with, join, and be part of it. The application of principles in difficult gray areas and ethical dilemmas is crucial.

In our Fellowship Leadership Institute, I try to give people hard problems to help them understand that you don’t usually get a perfectly good option and a perfectly bad option. Usually, you get a sort of good option and a sort of bad option, and you have to figure out the best one under the circumstances. Christians often see the world in a very Manichaean way. There are Christians and non-Christians, good people and evil people, and all of that is true. However, the middle ground is where foreign policy and statesmanship live. If we don’t equip people to navigate this unclear area and make tough decisions that aren’t always perfect, we’re doing them a disservice for the future.

The role of the church and state is critical. This idea of Christian eschatology, or more accurately, teleology, is important. Many Christians think we’re just here to perform sacraments, get saved, and go to heaven. That’s not true. If you read the Bible and look at church history, God is doing something in the universe through cosmic redemption and restoration.

There is a temporal plane we live on that we are called to be part of and engage with. Understanding the big story of Christianity, beyond just getting saved and performing sacraments, helps people figure out their place in history. This understanding influences their decision-making. The meta-narrative of Christianity is preached too little from the pulpit.

Young people need experiences to shape their understanding of the world. Providing experiences that test their assumptions and make them uncomfortable with difficult ethical dilemmas is crucial. Bringing people abroad, especially to complex and chaotic regions like the Middle East, helps them understand the world beyond the U.S. This exposure is vital for equipping them to think critically about international affairs.

It’s also important to show young people what Christianity, the West, and America have brought to the world. We often focus on the negative, like the Iraq War, but there have been significant positive contributions. For instance, the American University of Beirut, established by missionaries in the 19th century, has been a wellspring of education and progress in the Middle East. Highlighting such successes is essential.

Leadership training is another crucial area. Beyond substantive issues of foreign policy, young people need training on how to lead, make decisions, and engage in the public square. They may have the knowledge, skill, and desire but lack the leadership training needed to weigh in on difficult issues.

The young generation also needs honesty from the older generation, particularly regarding the Iraq War. The failure of that war haunts us, and it’s important to honestly address what went right and wrong. This reflection can help avoid similar mistakes in the future. Discussions about these issues are often lacking in conservative Christian circles.

Providing victories, even small ones, is important for confidence in America’s role in the world. Seeing America do good and positively influence world affairs can inspire the young generation. It’s not about changing the entire Middle East or installing democracy everywhere but showing that American power can still shape and help the world. Balancing international efforts with nation-building at home is essential.

Let’s build highways, roads, and jobs—all important—but it’s crucial to convince them that we still can make a difference. The American University of Beirut is one small example among many. There are lots of other things we can do to demonstrate our positive impact. These are anecdotal and subjective observations, and I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this important issue. I hope this discussion will guide future conversations.

Now, I’ll take questions and comments. Hi.

Q&A 

Question: Thanks. My name is Jefferson Hawkins. I’m a PhD student in religion and politics at Yale. I confess to being mystified by your talk and wonder if you might be more specific. Here are a few claims: Millennials need fewer big international relations ideas and more theological ones. They don’t want to work with Saudi Arabia and think other nations are more humanitarian and ethical than the U.S. They are traumatized by the war in Iraq but need to learn that they can’t just parachute into the Middle East and understand it. They believe in a world divided between Christians and non-Christians, yet they are more excited about helping Muslims in the Middle East than Christians.

Given these points, could you clarify who exactly you are talking about? Also, what social scientific evidence supports the idea that these anecdotes are more than just subjective conditions?

Nicholson: Okay, well, I’m not talking about you for sure. You are part of a very elite and thoughtful group of young Christians who have applied themselves seriously to understanding religion and politics. You likely have a coherent worldview about how these interact in real-world events. However, the worldviews I describe are often incoherent. Many people haven’t thought carefully about these issues and are not fully educated on integrating church and government perspectives. They are figuring things out as they go.

If you put a hundred Millennials in a room, not all of them will fit this description. However, I have encountered these issues many times in my work. There is data on this, but a systematic survey of young Christians on this topic doesn’t exist to my knowledge. What I find among Millennials varies, and it’s a subject for future research. Some of what I described applies to some people, while other parts apply to others. The incoherence you mentioned is a real issue, and discussing it more might help people understand their views better.

Question: So, two follow-up questions: One, is presuming their incoherence question begging rather than the analysis being flawed? Second, if Millennials have an incoherent worldview, shouldn’t we either critique the bad parts or build on the good parts to guide them toward traditional Christian commitments? Why choose the first approach rather than the second?

Nicholson: Thanks for the fair point. I could have praised Millennials for their zeal and optimism. They have a strong desire to get involved, which is different from other generations. I believe there is a lot of potential in them. I am a millennial myself, so I don’t hold animosity toward the cohort. However, I encounter many more problems related to statesmanship beyond groups like this one.

It’s crucial that the older generation, including myself, be more intentional about discussing these issues with Millennials. The blame doesn’t fall on them but on those who are currently leading. In the Christian world, we have public voices like Robert Jeffress, who advocate extreme measures, and prosperity preachers like Joel Osteen. These voices are not thoughtful yet influence many Christians in America.

Question: Hi, I’m Myranda MPL. I’m new to the Hill and learning about how much money we give to foreign countries and what we do. I’m a die-hard patriot and love America more now after seeing these efforts. How do we combat the negative portrayal of America and highlight the good? 

Nicholson: Often, patriotism is viewed as evil, and there’s a lack of sincere concern for humanity when advocating for American values. We created this journal, Providence, to address this issue. There was no place to discuss these matters comprehensively. Providence was established to provide substantive ideas and create a community of Christian leaders interested in these issues. Reinhold Niebuhr, a major influence on the journal, was aware of America’s potential for both good and bad. He advised understanding the tension within America’s history.

Combating anti-Americanism in the media is a massive task. We’re working to create a thoughtful American voice on international affairs, informed by Christian thought. The project aims to build a community of thinkers and leaders. While there isn’t one solution, we’re making an effort to address these challenges.

Thank you.