In the twenty-first century, war has morphed into something historically unrecognizable. Our conflicts are qualitatively and quantitatively unlike those in the past. What’s more, war will morph even more in upcoming years. Today’s wars are more about cultural and religious animosity than enlargement of borders or rectification of injustice. Further, rapidly developing technologies have not [ Read More ]
Does God exist? As a Christian writer and speaker, I get this question all the time. And while my approach to answering it differs based on the context and the person asking, my answer is always the same: “Yes, God exists. God is real and He has communicated Himself to human beings through mighty acts [ Read More ]
Praise be to Allah…. Allah Most High has struck America in its most vulnerable spot, destroying its mighty buildings, praise be unto Him. Look at America—filled with terror from north to south, east to west—all praise be to Allah! Thus began Osama bin Laden in his “Oath to America,” broadcast by al-Jazeera nearly a month [ Read More ]
During the past two months, media hysteria that had been directed toward 2020 presidential candidates is now mostly being directed toward the epidemiologists, cultural commentators, and elected officials who are publicly discussing their views about how to manage the COVID-19 crisis. Cable news shows combine with social media virility to make every twist and turn [ Read More ]
If there’s one thing about sex just about everyone can agree on, it’s that sex is complicated. But complicated doesn’t mean (as some assume) that sex is bad. Quite the contrary: sex is complicated precisely because it is so good, valuable, and powerful. According to the creator of sex, God, sex has deep meaning and [ Read More ]
There are few statements more mistaken than “all is fair in love and war.” The moral law applies in every context, including even on the battlefield. Thus, the just war tradition recognizes and affirms a moral symmetry between criteria for deciding whether or not to make war (“jus ad bellum”) and criteria for how to [ Read More ]
The first two decades of the twenty-first century have been rife with war and threats of war. Jihadist-related deaths have increased from an average of roughly 2,500 innocents per year from 2001 to 2006 to a peak of 44,000 in 2014. ISIS waged deadly attacks and genocidal missions across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. The Syrian civil [ Read More ]
I am often asked—by skeptics, by agnostics, by atheists—how I could possibly believe Jesus rose from the dead. My answer? “There’s plenty of evidence that, yes, he did. He really did, literally and physically, walk out of his tomb.” In the past few weeks, though, people might be ask a different question about the resurrection: [ Read More ]
Friends, I participated in a ZOOM conference this week, in which I spoke for 45 minutes on the topic of “Politics and Christian Witness in a Secular Age.” Following the talk, I fielded questions for another 45 minutes. If you’re interested, the talk has been posted at my new YouTube channel. To access the video, [ Read More ]
In recent posts, we described the essence of the just war tradition, contrasted it with pacifism and jihadism, and described its foundations in ancient thought and its development through the medieval and early modern eras. In this post, we will explore the work of selected twentieth-century just war thinkers, each of whom made a signal [ Read More ]