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.

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, you know, 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 I’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. You know, we are, you know, we’re in an era where entering an era, you know, Walter said that we, you know, the eschaton is here, very ominous words, but I think he’s right.

And we’re in an era and we’re going even 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 really urgent. From an imploding Middle Eastern order to an increasingly unsustainable situation in East Asia, statesmen of the future, and I would say of the near future, will be called to make decisions that are more difficult than statesmen in the past ever have.

And the question really is, and this is the question of my talk, are young Christians prepared to take on that mantle, that mantle of global statecraft? Some are, yes, and I think I’m kind of preaching to the choir. I know there are a lot of young people in the crowd, and I suspect that 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 actually has to do with deeper problems in the American church, and hopefully we’ll get to that.

So for those of you especially who teach and who work a lot with the next generation, I don’t know that any of this is going to be terribly profound. I see my role here as actually teeing up a few of the issues and condensing some of the things that we already know, identifying some issues that hopefully will 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 sort of a failure. So be thinking about these issues of the next generation as you’re discussing all of the substantive matters that are coming forward.

So, you know, in thinking about this, I have all kinds of anecdotal experience working with young leaders. Filos Project, my organization, that’s really at the heart of what we do, trying to train young leaders, particularly on Middle East issues. But beyond the anecdotes, I wanted to look at some data because I haven’t in a while. And so I looked at, I found some really interesting surveys about millennial attitudes toward global statecraft. I didn’t want to take too much time, so I’ve really just taught, I have some language here from a Cato study in 2015 on Millennials and foreign policy.

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

Cato also found that Millennials tend to be not just trusting but inclined toward collaboration. So 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 that cooperation rather than confrontation with China is the appropriate strategy for the U.S. Finally, non-interventionist Millennials are also 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.

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

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

States maybe make it worse, and the idea that we as a state are gonna go do something in another part of the world doesn’t automatically mean that we’re gonna do something right. In fact, I think that there’s an opinion among many that we just screw everything up. Like the more we get involved, the worse it gets. States just don’t know how to do things correctly. And yet, while there’s a cynicism for power and for states, there’s a deep idealism for human beings. So Millennials, I find, tend to be very concerned about people, about individuals, people who are suffering much more, I think, than generations that are 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 very much, tend to be very concerned and want to do something. There’s a deep discomfort, I find, with gray areas in foreign policy. You know, I think all people are not very good at sort of nuance when looking at world affairs. They tend toward one pole or the other. And especially for Christians, this idea that you have to work with some people who may have some warts.

You know, we have to work with Saudi Arabia notwithstanding the fact that Saudi Arabia isn’t actually all that free and is actually opposed in a deep way to many of the principles that 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 that there’s these gray areas with Walter identified, you know, there’s a lot of foreign policy and statesmanship is working in the gray zone. And I think for many Christians, that’s very, very difficult. There’s also, and this goes with the state’s thing, there’s a very strong desire for justice but not very much interest in law or rule of law. You know, everybody wants justice, but very, very few people are interested in the legal structures or the political structures that ensure that that justice is procured. States, borders, all of these things just sound oppressive and anachronistic for many Millennials.

I think for many, especially in this day and age, and I encounter this all the time, there’s kind of a disbelief in America. And I don’t think many people would admit that, but I think it sort of underlies much of their thinking. And it goes further in a disbelief for the West. And I think for many, or at least for some, there’s sort of a disbelief in, I won’t say Christianity because they’re very Christian, but a disbelief in Christians, that Christians are a force for good in the world.

You know, one of the issues I work a lot on is supporting and defending Christians in the Middle East. And I find that many Christians in the young generation would prefer to work with almost any other community in the Middle East apart from Christians. They rush to help, you know, this kind of beleaguered community or that sort of Muslim sect. But to say that we should help Christians is a very hard thing for some of them to swallow, as crazy as that may sound. Because, look, you know, Christians, we’re like W

estern colonialists and those guys over there, even though they’re suffering, you know they’re sort of Christians too, and maybe they’re actually on the wrong side of these issues like we have been in the recent past. There’s almost a shame. You know Syrian Muslim refugees love that issue. Iraqi Christians, it’s less sexy and I don’t think I’m gonna work on that.

There’s many who have the belief that, you know, while our culture, our civilization is deeply problematic, there’s a belief that other cultures sort of have it together. And boy, if we were only like, you know, Sweden or one of these other countries. I think at the bottom of it all, there’s a distorted view of Christianity which I’m going to come back to. A very reductionist, minimalist view of Jesus and of justice that drives a lot of their thinking.

They’re very committed in their faith, many of these young leaders, and they want to be like Jesus, but the way that they do it, I think, sort of takes Jesus out of his historical and really theological context. So why, what, why is all of this the situation? I think, you know, obviously a part of it, and this goes for any community, Christian or not, part of it is just generational change.

You know, one generation grows up, the other, you know, it sort of declines. The next generation rises up and wants to kill all the sacred cows and wants to be the opposite of what mom and dad and grandma and grandpa were. There’s also, I think, the issue of experience. So we’ve all grown up metaphorically in a good neighborhood.

You know, we’re surrounded by oceans, the world is more or less at peace. There is terrorism, but we’re not facing this sort of cataclysmic thermonuclear annihilation that a previous generation had gone through. When you grow up in a good neighborhood, it’s hard to imagine what life is like in a bad neighborhood. I think, you know, this whole point about being trusting, about sort of assuming the best in people flows from that context.

America is arguably at its peak, safer, more prosperous than ever before. It’s really hard to get outside of that and see what life is like in many other parts of the world. What I think many of us miss, old and young, is that guaranteeing the order, you know, what order we have in the world, the guarantor of that order has been up until now American power.

You can’t see it. You only will see it if it disappears. In the meantime, you just assume that the world is sort of humming along on its own. Your experience tells you that, look, you know, the world without America could be a really great place. Whether or not we’re involved abroad, the world will work, which is an assumption.

A big thing that I find, and this is actually even for myself, for people who are my age and younger, is the collective memory of America since 9/11, particularly after 2003 with the Iraq War, is a deeply repressed, I don’t even know a better word than, trauma. When you think about foreign policy as a young Christian leader, you think about almost everything through the lens of the Iraq War. I think it’s probably the same for the generation that grew up with Vietnam.

The idea is that we went on an escapade, we didn’t do it well, we actually made it much, much worse. You look around the global war on terrorism, and you really can’t find a win. It looks like we just keep fighting, keep killing, keep invading, and we just aren’t getting anywhere. It’s actually exacerbating the problem.

I think for many young Christians, this is the norm of their international experience. The US and the world is hapless and actually counterproductive, sort of a bull in the china shop. They haven’t really had a big win on the international stage. I think that drives much of their thinking about American engagement abroad.

There’s, of course, the digital side of things. You know, we are now exposed to more points of view, more lives than any other generation previous. We’re able to see what people are doing all the way across the world. Although in some senses, this generation is the most self-centered, and a lot of people have written about that, in a lot of ways it’s the most aware of how insignificant they are among the billions of people who are on Facebook.

Watching all of these lives, and reading all of these posts, and seeing what’s happening, different perspectives, it can be disorienting. I think it unmakes you from the confidence and the belief in your own point of view that previous generations had just because they had a much more isolated experience. We could talk for hours about the problem of the American Academy and the way that it talks about foreign affairs.

I see Joe LaConte in the audience, my friend Joe, who, working in the American Academy, actually tries hard to address a lot of these issues in his class with his students who come in with, I think, all of these sorts of points of view. Joe has tried to do sort of the anti-Academy in a lot of ways, trying to build up 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 completely the opposite.

Students are convinced that the US is a force for bad. Really, I think, again, it’s a problem of the American church. If you look around the American church today, and there are plenty of great churches, this isn’t a jeremiad against the American church, but I think we can agree, I’d like to think we can agree that the kind of Christianity that’s being talked about and pushed, peddled in the American church today, it tends to be overall much more individualistic, much softer, much more user-friendly.

Politically correct, and at the same time, kind of apolitical as well. I could tell all kinds of anecdotes about young Christians who tell me, “Look, I’m a Christian, therefore I don’t do politics. I don’t do foreign policy. That’s for secular people. We as Christians, you know, our mission is to do missions or to bring blankets to parts of the world. We’re supposed to be like Jesus. All this state, Caesar, let Caesar do what Caesar does. It’s not for the church.”

This thinking, this apolitical thinking, has, I think, infected a lot of people and convinced them that Christians just don’t do this stuff. Good Christians don’t mess with foreign policy, they focus on the gospel, which of course we do. But I think that point is stressed so much that people kind of discount all of the political questions of our day.

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

I suspect that maybe in question time we’ll hear some answers from you as well. What do they need? I think it’s fair to argue that they just need to grow up and get married and have kids and have to pay the light bill and mow the lawn and do all of the really annoying things. O

nce you grow up and get married, you realize the world is not exactly what you thought it was. If you polled the young generation in 1968, you’d probably be saying a lot of the same things I’m saying now. That generation has actually shifted in the other direction, and millennials have taken their place. A fair critique of everything I’m saying is, “Look, 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 big gap in terms of historical, linguistic, and cultural knowledge about the parts of the world they want to work on. Many people come to Filos, my organization, and say, “Man, 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 to them is, “What kind of 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 they don’t know any languages beyond the Spanish they took in high school.

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 our universities is a huge problem. When it comes to future statesmen, if these people don’t understand different parts of the world, we’re in big trouble. Training young Christian leaders on foreign policy tends to hammer into them theories like realism versus constructivism.

These overarching theories about how the world works aren’t the most useful things you can teach someone planning on going into statesmanship. I was in Lebanon recently, speaking to a guy about the political situation there. I asked him, “Who are the politicians you respect, especially in the Christian community, and why do you respect them?” He told me, “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 different groups that don’t always like each other.” The best leaders are those who can 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. Less giant books on international theory and more word problems. For example, the Kurdish regional government voted on independence recently. This presents all kinds of difficult issues for an American and American Christian about how to respond.

That’s a word problem. We should train our young people to look at that situation, take all factors into account, and make a decision or take a position based on what they’re seeing. The way we’re training people now 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 u

nder 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’s 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.

Thanks. My name is Jefferson Hawkins. I’m a PhD student in religion and politics at Yale. I confess to being a bit mystified by your talk, and I 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, I wonder if you could clarify who exactly you are talking about. Also, what social scientific evidence supports the idea that these anecdotes are more than just subjective conditions?

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 just 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.

So, two follow-up questions: One is whether presuming their incoherence is 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 towards traditional Christian commitments? Why choose the first approach rather than the second?

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 any 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.

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? 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.