Lecuture Presented on Thursday November 16, 2006
You are cordially invited to the John Jay Institute lecture
The Ghosts of Appeasement
Christian Realism and the Rise of Islamo-Facism
by Joseph Loconte
Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, D.C.
Editor, The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler's Gathering Storm
Synopsis
Most critiques of liberalism overlook its deepest moral and religious problem—the denial of radical evil. The fact is that liberalism is sanguine about human nature and its capacities for good, even perfectibility. Plato taught that politics is the soul writ large. In his view the right ordering of our common life must take into account the nature or essence of humankind. Thus the pressing question for the science of politics is: Is humanity basically good and therefore perfectible or is humanity depraved and haunted by radical evil? Utopians throughout history consistently have denied evil as part of the universal human condition. Consequently, in the last century utopians of the 1930s downplayed the global threat of Nazism and Fascism. Similarly today's utopians soft-pedal the clear and present danger of Islamic radicalism. The ghosts of appeasement, which now animate many political and religious leaders, present a profound challenge to the health and even survival of American democracy. Overcoming this challenge involves a recovery of Christian realism about the problem of evil in a post-9/11 world. In this lecture Mr. Joseph Loconte offers a historically informed critique of liberalism through the lens of Christian realism with some applications for U.S. foreign policy today. Mr. Loconte is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., commentator for National Public Radio, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Pepperdine Univesity's School of Public Policy.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
7:00 p.m.
In the Great Hall of Grace Church and St. Stephen's Parish
601 North Tejon Street
Colorado Springs, Colorado
A reception for Mr. Loconte will follow the lecture.
Please R.S.V.P. by November 6, 2006 to Mrs. Maeta Emmons at
Telephone: (719) 471-8900 or email: memmons@johnjayinstitute.org
