UKRAINE UPDATE: MILITARY ESCALATION, DIPLOMACY, AND A ROLE FOR CHINA? Today we first consider a Russia Matters (RM) staff article about Henry Kissinger’s speech to the World Economic Forum (WEF) via Zoom on 17 Jan 2023 entitled Kissinger’s Post-War Vision Puts Ukraine in NATO but Also Has an ‘Opening to Russia’ In Visit the Rideau Institute for the complete article
The Chaplain of Kyiv: From Russian Torture to Ukrainian Freedom
Thirty-five-year-old Viktor Cherniivaskyi is no stranger to pain. In August 2014, he was helping citizens escape a militarized zone, the product of mass Ukrainian protests, the ousting of Ukraine’s president, and the Russian annexation of Crimea. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
A Bond for All Seasons
As the producers of the venerable James Bond franchise come to ponder how best to refurbish their hero for the uncertain times ahead—a woman, perhaps, and/or a person of color?—a small but persistent debate among film buffs continues to address the chicken-and-egg dilemma of which came first: Have the actors successively playing Bond over the past 60-plus years consciously fine-tuned their performance in response to all the eddies in fashion and culture, or have they been ahead of the curve in defining the limits of an acceptable sort of male behavior for the rest of …
A Priest for People with Problems
Being fully human is complicated. Having a foot in both the material and spiritual worlds and with an originally good but fallen nature, our thoughts, motivations, and desires often come into conflict, and we don’t always choose what is best for us. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
Calculating the risks for Ukraine, Israel spyware update, reducing space threats and more
Ukraine update For a frank and hard-hitting analysis of the best way forward for Kyiv, see Peace by exhaustion in Ukraine (Shlomo Ben Ami, inquirer.net, 19 January 2023; originally published in the paywalled Project Syndicate, HERE). Ben Ami writes: those who resist imperfect peace—remaining committed instead to a “just peace” achieved, presumably, through Visit the Rideau Institute for the complete article
Biblical Critical Theory and Other Errors
If a Christian scholar has figured out a way to wrestle with critical theory through a biblical lens, that would be an important book. Unfortunately, Christopher Watkin’s Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture is mistitled. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
Fidel Castro’s Failed Paradise
Six decades after its celebrated communist revolution, Cuba remains a totem for America’s left. Yet the country is imploding into irrelevance. Fidel Castro is dead and Raul Castro is retired, but their successors rule as if 1989 had never occurred. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
The Will to Power Is Not the Christian Way
It is not a point of dispute that the Christian faith, both in influence and number of adherents, is declining in the Western world. Every month, new books, articles, podcasts, surveys, and sermons analyze, diagnose, and strategize about the waves of secularism pounding through churches, synagogues, homes, marriages, workplaces, universities, primary and secondary schools—indeed, what feels like every square inch of our society. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
Fighter jet folly, Biden’s “just peace” for Ukraine, think tanks and nukes and more
CANADA FINALIZES F-35 FIGHTER JET FOLLY On 9 January 2023, Defence Minister Anita Anand announced that Canada had finalized an agreement with the US government and Lockheed Martin with Pratt & Whitney for the acquisition of 88 F-35 fighter jets for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) pursuant to a Visit the Rideau Institute for the complete article
What Is Protestant Social Teaching?
The point of departure for Protestant Social Teaching: An Introduction is an observation set forth by Stephen J. Grabill in the pages of the Journal of Markets & Morality: “Neither magisterial Protestants nor evangelicals have a theologically unified body of social teaching.” Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
Remembering Our Mortality in a Death-Averse Culture
There was a time when the Latin axiom “Memento Mori,” or its English translation, “Remember that thou art mortal,” actually meant something to people. For most of history, death was omnipresent and everyone had to make peace with it. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
Faith and Reason in the Life and Work of Benedict XVI
With the December 31 passing of Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church, Christianity, and the world lost one of the most significant and insightful minds of the last century. Certainly, within the Church, Joseph Ratzinger was among the most influential and esteemed theologians of the second half of the 20th century, all the way through his pontificate in the early 21st, to include the period of the Second Vatican Council, to which he was an important adviser. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
