The priority of peace fundamentally grounds Augustine’s just war theory. Pacifism is not incidental but essential to it.
David Albertson
David Albertson is professor of religion and philosophy at the University of Southern California. His book Utopia for Our Century: A Manifesto of Hope, coauthored with Jason Blakely, is out July 21 with Yale University Press
Posted inFaith and Reason
What Pope Francis taught us: Church teaching finds clarity and power in acts of mercy
Pope Francis taught the church that the magisterium finds its clarity not merely in propositions but in acts of mercy.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
We’re all responsible for the toxic discourse that lets Marjorie Taylor Greene and Father Altman thrive
The temptation in current U.S. politics is to treat all of one’s opponents the same: not just evil, but blameworthy for every imaginable form of evil.
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
Pope Francis wants Catholics to dare to dream of a better way of doing politics
With the much-anticipated release of Pope Francis’s new encyclical “Fratelli Tutti” on Oct. 4, Catholic Christians would do well to revisit his critique of false realism and false nostalgia, and his call for the church to foster a political attitude of faithful and daring dreaming.
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
Where can we find shelter in a time of risk and uncertainty?
Can the humanities help us find intellectual, emotional and spiritual shelter during our present time of crises?
Posted inFaith and Reason, Politics & Society
A dialogue on the ‘new nationalism’
Signatories of two recent open letters, one embracing a “new nationalism” and the other warning of its dangers, engage each other’s concerns and questions.
Posted inFaith and Reason, Politics & Society
Whose nation? Which communities? The fault lines of the new Christian nationalism
From a unity deeper than citizenship, that of baptism, we implore our fellow Christians: Join us in denouncing this violence, and help us understand what distance is left between that nationalism and yours.