How Faith Fosters Global Peace, Prosperity, and Justice

The Christian Faith provides principles that can guide analysis and action in international affairs. The Bible is not a manual on political action; rather it provides a framework that serves as a moral compass.  If Christians are to help advance human dignity (the secular analog for the imago Dei) they need to utilize this framework as they work through existing institutions, especially the nation-state.  Prosperity and human rights are possible only when states are both strong and beneficent.  This lecture will illustrate the challenge of moral analysis with a case study on immigration.

Dr. Mark R. Amstutz is professor emeritus of political science at Wheaton College (Illinois). As professor, he established and developed the college’s political science department and won several teaching awards. He also directed six overseas programs in Europe and Latin America. A scholar of international ethics and one of the country’s leading commentators on the role of religion in International Affairs, he is the author of nine books, including The Healing of Nations: The Promise and Limits of Political Forgiveness, The Rules of the Game: A Primer on International Relations, Evangelicals and American Foreign Policy, and Just Immigration:
American Policy in Christian Perspective. His two most recent books are Building World Order: How the Christian Faith Fosters Global Peace, Prosperity, and Justice and the sixth edition of International Ethics: Concepts, Theories, and Cases in Global Politics, both published in 2025.