Woodrow Wilson's Tragic Theology

Andrew Preston, a noted Cambridge historian and student of religion's influence on American foreign policy, recently wrote in Foreign Affairs about the "faith-based geopolitics" of President Obama. While critical of the frequent disconnect between his rhetoric and diplomacy, Preston notes that in his first term President Obama's most important foreign policy speeches often placed religion "front and center." Notably, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama referenced Reinhold Niebuhr's "theology of irony" to make the point that sometimes force is necessary to achieve peaceful ends. That was not the first time President Obama invoked Niebuhr. Shortly before his 2008 election, the President told editorialist David Brooks that Niebuhr was "one of my favorite philosophers" and explained that he was particularly influenced by Niebuhr's "compelling idea that there's serious evil in the world."

President Obama's faith-based geopolitical rhetoric is not likely to soothe the ears of secularists here and abroad, but religiously-grounded moral rhetoric in the service of America's foreign policy is as American as apple pie. Indeed, a religiously-infused worldview has shaped America's global engagement since its founding.

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