I spent the last weekend of October exploring the Old Town of Vilnius, Lithuania. I was in that grand 700-year-old city for speaking appearances and to visit friends. My dear wife, Jeanie, came with me. Tuesday, Oct. 31, was free, and Jeanie and I decided on different itineraries. She went exploring in Lithuania’s many historic Catholic […]
City of the Living, City of the Dead: From Vilnius to Israel/Palestine
Last week, I was in Amsterdam for the annual academic colloquium of the International Baptist Theological Study Center. Among the scholars present there was my friend Fyodor Raychynets, a distinguished Baptist pastor and theologian, and a leader of the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary in Kyiv, which I had the privilege of visiting several years ago. I
An Interview with Ukrainian Baptist Theologian Fyodor Raychynets
At one level, the Christian debate about the morality of war is ancient and timeless. Juxtaposed against the ubiquitous warfare of human history stands Jesus Christ, who taught enemy-love, nonretaliation and peacemaking, and went to his death on the Cross without defending himself. Anyone who takes the Gospel accounts of Jesus at all seriously must be
Ethicists without Borders is a Facebook group spearheaded by the distinguished Christian ethicist Tobias Winright of St. Louis University. This group has just released the statement below. I am a signatory. Note the following elements: This statement calls what is going on by its right name — not vague worries about “the conflict in Ukraine,”
Ethicists Without Borders Issues Statement on Russia’s Aggression Against Ukraine
There were no morally unambiguous options, no innocent choices, facing President Joe Biden when it came to deciding what to do about the 20-year U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan that has cost the lives of nearly 2,500 U.S. troops, 3,800 U.S. security contractors, 100,000 Afghan civilians, some number of allied NATO personnel (a detail that never seems to
On Afghanistan, There Were No Innocent Choices Available