Foreign Policy and Christian Conscience
A week ago, the death took place at 101 of George Kennan, one of America's greatest public servants who represented his country with honour in Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Riga, Lisbon, Moscow and Washington. In May 1959, The Atlantic Monthly published his article "Foreign Policy and Christian Conscience" (subscription required) and seeing that this is Good Friday, I thought that this would be an appropriate day to quote from it.
While Kennan warned those involved in the political process "of pouring Christian enthusiasm into unsuitable vessels which were at best designed to contain the earthy calculations of the practical politicians", he did stress that there were phases of government work in which Christian meaning could be looked for. "We can look for it, first of all, in the methods of our diplomacy, where decency and humanity of spirit can never fail to serve the Christian cause," he noted and concluded:
"Beyond that there loom the truly apocalyptic dangers of our time, the ones that threaten to put an end to the very continuity of history outside which we would have no identity, no face, either in civilization, in culture, or in morals. These dangers represent for us not only political questions but stupendous moral problems, to which we cannot deny the courageous Christian answer. Here our main concern must be to see that man, whose own folly once drove him from the Garden of Eden, does not now commit the blasphemous act of destroying, whether in fear or in anger or in greed, the great and lovely world in which, even in his fallen state, he has been permitted by the grace of God to live."
Timeless. God rest George Kennan.
