“Politics is inevitably judging between not only legitimate and illegitimate demands but also between legitimate demands, which are usually much harder to dismiss. And we are often, probably usually, judging based on uncertain information, even ignorance.
I could list many politicians whom I think are doing stupid things…. But rest assured there is no right answer to these complex issues lying out there in some neo-Platonic universe waiting simply to be found and implemented.
Politics is itself hard: it is arguing and competing and fighting over contested, often differently valued, and often underinformed, issues and policies.
But if you want to abandon the jarring messiness of politics, then Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, and Xi Jinping would be happy to suggest some alternatives.”

“We sat by the side of the road in the hills near Tonado, the heat and humidity offset by wonderful mangoes from the local roadside fruit stand, whose owners simply plucked them from their trees thirty feet away. We were waiting for Toar Palilingan, the leader of the only functioning synagogue in Indonesia. Since his family was mostly from the local Minehasa people, we hoped we could recognize him when he arrived. But recognition was no problem. He was hard to miss. Wearing a black suit despite the tropical heat, white open-necked shirt, pointy black shoes, tzitzit, and topped with a sharp black fedora. I thought: ‘We’re in Brooklyn; but, no, we were in the beautiful tropical highlands of the Northeast corner of the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia.”

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who
sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the
joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.

A defense of Nobel-Prize-winning author Rudyard Kipling from charges of racism by those who appear never to have read his work.

Reflections on the death of John Stott.

With Scott Palmer. On recognizing Russia’s sacrifices in World War II.

Reflections on the 2004 U.S. elections and the widespread use and misuse of the “fundamentalism.

Biographical reflections in the magazine of the Billy Graham Association on how I ended up where I am, working on religious freedom.

Reflections on pluralism and the parable of the wheat and the tares.