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National Review: War, Refugees, and the Christian Imagination

12/26/2015

This article was originally posted at National Review. How the refugees of the Great War informed the works of two great Christian writers. Thomas Hardy, in “Poems of War and Patriotism,” described an appalling refugee crisis in the heart of Europe a century ago. They were “pale and full of fear,” and came by the thousands […]

WNET/Channel 13: Author and Historian Joseph Loconte Discusses the Influence of the First World War on Authors J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis

12/17/2015

This article was originally posted at MetroFocus. Authors J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis share the distinction of being two of the most important writers of the twentieth century, but they were also close friends, bonded by their shared experiences of the First World War and its aftermath. In his book, A Hobbit, A Wardrobe and a […]

Providence: Ted Cruz, Realpolitik, and the Future of the Middle East

12/17/2015

This article was originally posted at Providence. Perhaps like no other Republican presidential candidate, Senator Ted Cruz exemplifies the nation’s conflicted conscience over the direction of U.S. foreign policy in the age of terror. Should the United States promote democracy in the Middle East, or should we learn to live with Arab dictatorships, even as we […]

Providence: A Terrorism Speech that Will Live in Infamy

12/08/2015

This article was originally posted at Providence. Barack Obama’s prime-time address to the nation on Sunday—delivered four days after the most deadly terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11—was intended to reassure an anxious nation that America was nevertheless on course to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Instead, the president’s predictably languid, […]

Providence: Syrian Refugees, the Republican Party, and the American President

11/24/2015

This article was originally posted at Providence. If we needed conclusive proof of the degraded condition of America’s political leadership, we have it in the debate over the Syrian refugee crisis. For the Republican Party and its conservative allies, this is their hour of shame. Last week 27 Republican governors declared that they would not accept […]

Providence: Mr. Obama’s Recruitment Strategy for ISIL

11/20/2015

This article was originally posted at Providence. The Paris terror attack by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has transformed the immigration debate in this country: whether to allow at least 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States over the next year, as proposed by President Obama. Fearing that terrorists will slip in […]

Georgetown Journal of International Affairs: Obama, FDR, and the Failure of U.S. Foreign Policy

11/16/2015

This article was originally posted at the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. When Barack Obama won the election in 2008, the cover of TIME magazine showed the president-elect grinning like Franklin Roosevelt, with FDR’s signature fedora, wire-rimmed glasses, and long-stemmed cigarette. The cover article, “The New, New Deal,” suggested how Mr. Obama could emulate the accomplishments […]

CapX: Obama’s Failed Policy of Containment

11/16/2015

This article was originally posted at the CapX. Just a few hours before foot soldiers of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) unleashed a storm of terror, anguish, and death upon the city of Paris, President Obama assured an ABC News interviewer that his military approach to the terrorist threat was working. “What is […]

Providence Journal: Turkey on the Brink

11/12/2015

The Obama White House seems blithely unaware that one of America’s most important partners in the struggle to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) and alleviate the refugee crisis in Europe—Turkey, a member of NATO—is on the brink of a political meltdown that could end its experiment in liberal democracy.

Georgetown University: Luther’s Challenge to the Conscience of the West

11/03/2015

This article was originally posted at the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Responding to Reformation Day and Luther’s Legacy November 3, 2015 The papal bull of 1520 excommunicating Martin Luther from the Catholic Church accused him of promoting forty-one heresies and “pestiferous errors.” One of the alleged […]