WINTER 2017 • ISSUE 6 A JOURNAL OF CHRISTIANITY & AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY DOMINION /də’minyən (IS NOT) DOMINATION /dämə’nāSH(ə)n/ “Let us make mankind in our image; and let them have dominion over all the earth…” Called to share the Divine likeness, human beings were made to exercise rule in the form of dominion: delegated, providential care—responsibility—for the conditions of history, in history. Such care is characterized by other-centered acts of self-donation. This contrasts sharply with domination. Since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, human beings have been afflicted by the libido dominandi—we have been ruled by the lust to rule. Domination is characterized by self-centered acts of other-donation that feed our hunger for power, advantage, and glory through the forced submission of the powerless to our will. REINHOLD NIEBUHR & THE PROBLEM OF PARADOX BY MARC LIVECCHE The political-theological patrimony of the Christian intellectual tradition, including just war casuistry, helps guide human beings back to the just THE GREAT WAR & THE DAWN exercise of our governing vocation. In our private and public lives, including OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY through the work of government, human dominion is approximate, limited, BY JOSEPH LOCONTE and imperfect. Following after God’s work of creating, sustaining, and WINTER WILL CHRISTIANITY SURVIVE IN THE MIDDLE liberating all of creation, human beings exercise power with the aim of EAST? A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE peace, characterized by the presence of justice and order as oriented toward BY KENT R. HILL genuine human flourishing. 2017 • ALSO: ROBERT NICHOLSON LOOKS EAST TOWARD THE SYRIAN CRISIS • MARK TOOLEY CONSIDERS NUMBER CHRISTIANS & EMPIRE • LUBO ONDRASEK PAYS TRIBUTE TO JEAN BETHKE ELSHTAIN • MICHAEL NOVAK IS COMMEMORATED • WAYNE SCHROEDER CALLS CHRISTIANS TO PEACE WORK • THORIN OAKENSHIELD MAKES A DEATHBED CONFESSION • DOUGLAS BURTON REPORTS ON MOSUL • AMITAI ETZIONI PRESCRIBES MORAL TRIAGE • HERMAN MELVILLE REMEMBERS THE BATTLE OF SHILOH • & 6 ALAN DOWD REFLECTS ON AMERICA’S LONG DEFENSE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY Providence_winter17_cover.indd 1 29.03.17 20:31 exclusively on our reputation for good from which other moral the tension between order and maintaining order and justice goods flow, and that without justice. But that doesn’t mean in areas under our hegemony. stability other moral goods can- the answer is disengagement. This points toward why moral not flourish. leadership is in the national in- The Trump Administration PROVIDENCE terest. “The problem we face,” Closely connected to order, how- should consider a variety of WINTER 2017 | NUMBER 6 said Niebuhr, “is whether we ever, is justice. Power requires mediating solutions that are can put enough moral content prestige to be sustainable; so too on the table, including the cre- into our hegemony to make our order ultimately requires jus- ation of safe zones that would physical power morally suffer- tice. “[O]rder precedes justice recognize underlying demog- FEATURES able to our allies.” in the strategy of government,” raphy and provide a path for Niebuhr wrote, “but…only an stable post-conflict governance. MARC LIVECCHE The tension between order and order which implicates justice Such safe zones, implemented justice, between stability and can achieve a stable peace.” well, would offer the chance to REINHOLD NIEBUHR human rights, between states establish order in the midst of & THE PROBLEM OF PARADOX and individuals, lies at the heart Following Kennan and Niebuhr, chaos—even in geographically 4 of America’s quest for inter- a moral US foreign policy would discreet ways—that could lead national legitimacy. Nothing be prudent, consistent, forth- to new opportunities for justice. exposes that tension more than right, aware of its limitations, JOSEPH LOCONTE the question of military inter- and driven by the national in- What is not possible is a contin- vention. Is it better to tolerate terest. But if the national in- ued policy of inaction. Turning THE GREAT WAR & THE DAWN the reign of Bashar al-Assad terest desires the maintenance a blind eye to Syria tells the because he is a foreign sovereign of American power, our policy- world one of two things: either OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY and his ouster may lead to more makers must think hard about we are too weak to act, or we 16 don’t care about justice like we chaos and death? Or is it better “put[ting] enough moral content to overthrow him and hopefully into our hegemony”—not just claim. Regardless of the an- KENT R. HILL save lives, understanding that moral language—to keep that swer, it will prompt a further the crisis inside Syria could get power afloat. decline in American prestige WILL CHRISTIANITY even worse? and will ultimately undermine SURVIVE IN THE MIDDLE EAST? The question is not whether our our power. And unless we are 26 Niebuhr would create a hier- foreign policy will be one that prepared to let someone else A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE archy, or at least a sequence, implicates justice, but where lead in this most ancient, most between order and justice. As and how we execute that jus- sacred, and most unstable part Marc LiVecche notes in his es- tice in a way that enhances, and of our planet, diminished power say for this issue, Niebuhr saw doesn’t undermine, order. is an outcome that is entirely a continual conflict between unacceptable. Portrait of Reinhold Niebuhr by Hannah Strauss, impossible-to-attain ideals and The question of Syria is not sim- ple. It is a conflict that presents Robert Nicholson is the execu- original commission, 2017. A pensive Reinhold other, possibly lesser, ideals which were possible to attain a host of bad actors and options, tive director of the Philos Project, Niebuhr considers the scene before him, surrounded at least approximately. Order, none of which seems likely to and co-publisher of Providence. by iconic images from the Second World War. While more possible than anything like bring about an immediate end AD ORIENTEM will be a regular referencing historical events, horrific locations, and perfect justice, must come first. to the war. The polar options of feature offering commentary on the machinery of warfare, these images also suggest Like Kennan, Niebuhr believed nonintervention and full-scale the Middle East from a Western the focal points of Niebuhr’s internal conflicts as he that stability is itself a moral invasion are unlikely to balance prespective. wrestled with his own theological and ethical con- ceptual dilemmas. Immediately behind Niebuhr is an amphibious assault, with warfighters disembarking a landing craft and wading toward a shoreline al- ready engaged with the fire, smoke, and din of bat- tle. Above him, bombers swarm in deadly formation. Below are rendered scenes depicting the hated guard towers and dreaded gate of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Taken to- gether, these scenes begin to describe the reach, the moral and political complexity, and the devastation of human conflict. 83 ESSAYS PUBLISHERS MARK TOOLEY AMITAI ETZIONI ROBERT NICHOLSON MORAL TRIAGE 38 EDITOR MARK TOOLEY MARK TOOLEY MANAGING EDITOR CHRISTIANS & AMERICAN EMPIRE 43 MARC LIVECCHE ALAN W. DOwd DEPUTY EDITOR A SHIELD FOR FAITH 46 MARK MELTON SENIOR EDITORS WAYNE A. SCHROEDER KEITH PAVLISCHEK JUST CALLING: JOSEPH LOCONTE THE CHRISTIAN BASIS ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR A CAREER IN PEACEMAKING 57 SUSANNAH BLACK LUBOMIR MARTIN ONDRASEK CONTRIBUTING EDITORS MARK AMSTUTZ JEAN BETHKE ELSHTAIN: FRED BARNES AN AUGUSTINIAN AT WAR 66 NIGEL BIGGAR J. DARYL CHARLES PAUL COYER DOUGLAS BURTON MICHAEL CROMARTIE THE BATTLE FOR MOSUL DEAN CURRY & THE END OF HISTORY 72 ALAN DOWD THOMAS FARR MARY HABECK REBECCAH HEINRICHS WILL INBODEN REVIEWS JAMES TURNER JOHNSON HERB LONDON TIMOTHY MALLARD DANIEL STRAND PAUL MARSHALL PAR ADISE LOST: FAITH MCDONNELL ON THE POWER OF NOSTALGIA WALTER RUSSELL MEAD IN POLITICS PAUL MILLER Mark Lilla’s The Shipwrecked Mind 76 JOSHUA MITCHELL LUKE MOON ERIC PATTERSON ATT OBUSH M G MACKUBIN THOMAS OWENS PAR ADIGM LOST GREG THORNBURY Richard Haass’ A World in Disarray 78 INTERN LOGAN WHITE LAYOUT & DESIGN AD ORIENTEM JOSEPH AVAKIAN ROBERT NICHOLSON PRINTED BY MORALITY & THE CRISIS IN SYRIA 81 LINEMARK BASIC SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE $28 FOR A YEAR, FOUR ISSUES. STUDENT RATES AVAILABLE. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: [email protected] SPONSORED BY WEBSITE: PROVIDENCEMAG.COM ISSN 24713511 ESSAY Jean Bethke Elshtain. Amongst students, she shone. Source: Errol Elshtain. JEAN BETHKE ELSHTAIN: AN AUGUSTINIAN AT WAR Lubomir Martin Ondrasek ean Bethke Elshtain (1941- important mode of thinking disintegration and anarchy, and J2013) was an American about the ethics of war and peace yearns for order, security, and political theorist, ethicist, and in the West—which she always civic peace. Furthermore, she public intellectual who made insisted remained relevant to- recognizes that peace cannot scholarly contributions to the day, even if certain aspects might be attained without a certain debates on feminism, marriage bear reexamination and further level of coercion and occasion- and the family, democracy and development in light of the new ally even the use of military civil society, theology and reli- realities of 21st -century conflict. force. Like Augustine, who is gion, and war and international widely considered the father of relations. Indeed, such was the the Western just war tradition, scope of her contributions that JUST WAR TRADITION: A and unlike other realist thinkers four multi-day conferences were CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK such as Thomas Hobbes and the required to assess and honor FOR THE ETHICS OF WAR & more contemporary E. H. Carr, her work. Sponsored by the PEACE Elshtain was also a moral and McDonald Agape Foundation theological realist2 who main- and convened at the University Jean Bethke Elshtain was a tains that ethics should not be of Chicago, where she had taught political realist, but not in the separated from politics.