This volume accompanies another substantial collection, Christianity and Freedom: Volume 1, Historical Perspectives, prepared by the same editors. Professor Hertzke is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences as well as the faculty of the University of Oklahoma. Mr. Shah is associate director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and associate professor in the Government Department at Georgetown University. Continue Reading »
In the early Church, witnesses to the faith who had been persecuted and tortured but not killed were known as “martyr-confessors.” It’s been one of the great privileges of my life to have known such men and women: Czech priests who spent years as slave laborers in uranium mines; Lithuanian . . . . Continue Reading »
The cliché is that Donald Trump says what people think. On foreign policy, that cliché is actually true. Trump’s phone interview with the New York Times has been roundly mocked by political observers. In the transcript, he comes across more like a belligerent drunk than a potential president, . . . . Continue Reading »
Is the US obligated to do what is best for its people regardless of justice, or is the United States obligated to be a force for freedom in the world? Donald Trump seems to take (in his own bombastic way) the Machiavellian position, while Rubio takes an idealistic point of view. One asks too little . . . . Continue Reading »
The Bible begins with an Advent. After Adam and Eve sin, they hear the “voice of Yahweh walking in the garden in the Spirit of the day,” coming to confront and judge and promise a deliverer. The Bible ends with another Advent, a coming of Jesus after the coming of Jesus. The very last words of . . . . Continue Reading »
Details are still coming out about the arrest of four men who were allegedly plotting to attack Pope Francis, but the initial reports are harrowing enough. Continue Reading »
November 2015 will be remembered as the month in which the world woke up. The year began with the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris on January 7 and 8, an atrocity which drew millions to the streets of the French capital to stand in solidarity on behalf of civil liberty and freedom of speech. Militant . . . . Continue Reading »
While the U.S. remains the 800-pound gorilla in international relations, not everything occurring in the international realm comes in response to events in the U.S. This goes double for events in the Middle East. Reports that Saudi Arabia maintains current high production levels of oil despite . . . . Continue Reading »
I will start out politely, with the traditional As-salaam-u alaykum, peace be to you, and I will even use the title you have given yourself, and I will try to keep this note brief, for I can only imagine the press of your days, what with trying to manage a nascent state, and a fractious staff, and . . . . Continue Reading »
Shortly after jihadist murderers killed over 130 people in Paris, seven of the terrorists blowing themselves up in the process, President Obama spoke to the nation and described the massacres as “an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share.” No, Mr. President; with all . . . . Continue Reading »
