eric patterson

4 min read 2022-06-14 15:00:00

G.K. Chesterton and the Patriotism of Flag Day

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with

4 min read 2022-05-27 15:00:00

In 1868, General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization composed of Union Army veterans, set May 30 aside as a day “for

4 min read 2022-05-25 14:00:00

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the discussion of just war theory has resurfaced in the West. While those who support just war theory believe

5 min read 2022-04-06 15:00:00

If order is the attainable and justice the possible, then (re)conciliation is the desirable. Conciliation is future-focused in that it sees former

6 min read 2022-03-25 01:37:53

The fundamental responsibility of political actors, in war or peace, is to work toward order. In post-conflict settings, order begins when the

3 min read 2022-03-18 15:00:00

Just war thinking is not just about the decision to go to war (jus ad bellum) and the ethics of how war is fought (jus in bello). A robust just war

4 min read 2022-01-21 21:01:09

Deservedly or not, critics sometimes caricature just war thinking as jingoism or (increasingly) pacifism by another name—in other words, they

4 min read 2021-12-06 21:39:12

“He was waiting for the consolation of Israel…” Luke 2:25 Psychologists tell us that the time of the year when individuals are most depressed

10 min read 2020-11-12 16:00:00

“The Christian’s Cause,” by John C. Bennett A university student said recently: “The trouble with Christians is that they have no cause.”

5 min read 2020-09-28 23:06:25

On August 25 during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two people and wounded another, and now he faces first-degree

5 min read 2020-09-23 20:52:37

Christian realism is a “community of discourse” rather than a formal ideology or disciplined school of thought. Reinhold Niebuhr, who is most

5 min read 2020-09-09 15:00:00

For Augustine, peace—defined as the presence of justice, not merely the absence of violence—is the ultimate goal of a just war. It is this

8 min read 2020-06-15 21:12:35

The dedication page of Luke Goodrich’s new book Free to Believe – The Battle Over Religious Liberty in America reads, “For the Church.” The

7 min read 2020-05-06 15:00:00

Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) was many things in life: journalist, editor, pastor, theologian, the founder of a university, a founder and leader of a

4 min read 2019-11-21 16:00:56

In 2013 at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting, Providence contributing editor Eric Patterson heard a panel discussion