Libya and the Dilemmas of Overseas Intervention

There is longstanding disagreement over when, where and whether the United States is justified in intervening in trouble spots overseas. Clearly we cannot police the whole globe, as that would ultimately exhaust our limited resources. Some would prefer that the US withdraw from any and all foreign ventures and focus instead on domestic matters. This policy was followed between the two world wars but failed due to the aggressive ambitions of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.

Read more here.

CPJ: Capital Commentary revamp

The Center for Public Justice was founded in 1977 and since then has undertaken to articulate a Christian vision for public policy in the United States based on the principle of what I would call societal pluriformity. Recently its long time president, James W. Skillen, retired and was replaced by my friend and sometime colleague Gideon Strauss, who is now overseeing its activities.

Among the changes that Strauss has effected is to revamp CPJ’s Capital Commentary series, making it an online magazine with its own website. In today’s issue Strauss, who served as an interpreter on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, writes on Wonder, Heartbreak and Hope, the second instalment of a series on the Psalms that grows out of this difficult experience.

I am pleased to be playing a small part in the new Capital Commentary. Every other week for the next six months, Michael Gerson, former speech writer to President Bush, will be analyzing a political issue of significance from the previous two weeks under the general title, The Decision. The following week I will post a response to Gerson called Deliberation. Gerson’s first contribution appeared a week ago today: Fighting Disease in the Developing World. Today my response appears: Making Tough Decisions. Stay tuned. There’s more to come.

On the Brink of pluralism

The Center for Public Justice continues its series on pluralism with this contribution from my esteemed protégé, Dr. Paul Brink: On Dreams of Justice and Cups of Cool Water.

Love and justice in politics

It is all too common these days to play off love against justice. My friend and one-time colleague Gideon Strauss, now of the Center for Public Justice, has written a marvellous piece that properly draws an intimate connection between the two. It is worth republishing below in full:


“Justice is what love looks like in public.” So says Cornel West in the movie Call + Response. It reminds me of the kind of thing one of my philosophy professors would say during my university years: that the central divine call to humanity—that is, the call to love—is refracted in the rich diversity of human relationships into a prism of distinct callings: to practice frugality in business, to practice imagination in the arts, to practice justice in politics.

Justice is not something less than love or something other than love; it is the very expression of love when faced with the question of what is due God’s creatures in a particular situation.

Love unites the citizens of a distinct political community, binding them together with a care for both the individual and the common good. It imbues them with a devotion to the constitutional order to which they subject themselves. It burdens them with fealty to those who bear political authority. It grants them the gift of affection for the symbols, traditions and institutions of their particular political community and for the territory that harbors them.

Love calls both those who govern and the governed to consider themselves subject to the rule of law. Love also calls those who govern to exercise their authority with a primary concern for the well-being of those they govern rather than for their own self-interest. Love calls all citizens to submit to and respect the proper authorities.

Love of country at its best is a love for the common good and its expression in a just legal order in a particular place. Such a love is beautiful not only when it commands a willingness to serve the preservation of that good, but also when it provokes a commitment to reform that order wherever injustice persists.

Love happens in politics when justice is done “symphonically.” My understanding of justice has been brought to imaginative life by Jim Skillen’s suggestion that justice is symphonic. That is, doing justice is like writing or conducting a musical symphony, giving each of the various instruments of the orchestra room to contribute their distinctive sounds in such a way that these sounds come together in rich, lively rhythm and harmony rather than a dismal cacophony or a dull monotone.

Love, then, finds expression in public justice when governments and citizens recognize their own proper political responsibilities as well as the appropriate limits to those responsibilities, including the responsibilities and limits of the state.

Love also finds expression in public justice when governments and citizens recognize, and seek to protect and nurture, the proper responsibilities and limits of other kinds of human relationships—relationships distinct from the relationship between a citizen and his government and not dependent on the state for their meaning and purpose.

So, for example, when the state recognizes, protects and nurtures the freedom of communities of faith to practice their beliefs freely and authentically, love is being expressed as public justice. When the state recognizes, protects and nurtures the wonderful gift that marriages and families bring to a society, love is being expressed as public justice. When entrepreneurs, investors, managers and workers are each free to manufacture goods, provide services, and perform their trades with dignity, love is being expressed as public justice.

The Beatles were probably right when they sang that all we need is love. But love is nothing simply. It is a complex and fragile thing—finding one of its richest and most precious expressions in the communal practice of public justice that we call “politics.”

Defining social justice

Christianity Today carries an interview with my friend and sometime co-conspirator, Gideon Strauss, the new chief executive officer of the Center for Public Justice. I was struck by this exchange:

Define justice. How does it differ from public justice and social justice?

In the biggest sense, justice is when all God's creatures receive what is due them and contribute out of their uniqueness to our common existence. We are called to do justice in every sphere of our lives: how I love and educate my daughters, collaborate with my colleagues, interact with neighbors. Public justice is the political aspect—the work of citizens and political office bearers shaping a public life for the common good. Social justice is the civil society counterpart—nonpolitical organizations that promote justice (emphasis mine).

At Redeemer University College we have seen an increasing interest amongst our students in social justice. In fact, we now have a social justice major, an annual social justice conference and a course in the Religion Department devoted to the topic. Although I am happy to see this enthusiasm develop, it is not necessarily clear to me that everyone knows how the adjective social is intended to modify the noun justice. I quite like Strauss' definition, as it nicely captures the truth that all of us are called by God to do justice, not only within the context of the state, but within the various communal settings for which we bear responsibility.

Crossposted at First Things: Evangel

Two Kingdoms and Cultural Obedience

In recent decades, many Christians have been drawn to the Reformed understanding of the faith due to its holistic approach to the life in Christ—an emphasis found especially in the neocalvinist revival in the nineteenth-century Netherlands, led by Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck and others. Transplanted to North America in the twentieth century, neocalvinism has led to the establishment of a number of confessionally-based organizations, including a network of Christian day schools, universities, labour unions, think tanks, political movements and farmers' associations. The Kuyperian influence has expanded over the last three decades due to the efforts of, among others, the Center for Public Justice, the Coalition for Christian Outreach, Redeemer University College, the Christian Labour Association of Canada and, of course, Cardus. It is now more common to hear ordinary evangelical Christians speak in terms of all of life belonging to Christ and of grace restoring nature, though they may differ in the practical implications they draw from this basic confession.

However, not all evangelical Christians are necessarily on side of this neocalvinist revival.

Read more here.

From CLAC to CPJ

Here is the official announcement from the Center for Public Justice on the appointment of its new head: Gideon Strauss Appointed New CPJ President. In anticipation of assuming these responsibilities, Strauss has begun a new blog: http://cpjustice.org/gideonstrauss/. Although we will certainly miss his presence with us here in southern Ontario, we wish him the best as he takes up this fresh challenge south of the border. May God grant him wisdom and courage.