Christian Realism and the Successful Modern State

Abstract

By focusing on the importance of power relationships between states and emphasising the tendency to injustice and tyranny in any unchecked power, Christian realism in the middle of the twentieth century made sense of an international order structured by rivalry between nuclear superpowers. These lessons remain important for international politics, but a pluralistic Christian realism will have to give more attention in the future to relationships between the state and other primary social forces, especially business and religion. The classic political problem of providing sufficient order without destroying freedom remains central, but it takes on different contours in a world no longer structured by rival superpowers.