Over a century ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson travelled to the Midwest to meet with a group of intellectual and political leaders, to discuss the organization of a rational world. After many days of debate on the subject of nationalism vs. internationalism, and the organization of a world community, it was decided that the future capital of the world should be in Constantinople. At this point, Emerson stalked from the- conference, with the comment: “Impossible. It's too far from Concordl”

Today, as the distance from Constantinople to Concord has dwindled, our concept of the future and of ourselves has faded. The influence, self-confidence, and poise of the American intellectual has declined.

Given the name and nature of the professional society for which those papers on which I offer comment were written, and given the nature of the designated political problem, one would expect these methodological applications to develop at least the following points; (1) a theological determination of Christian responsibility for political involvement in general and for the use of national power in international politics in particular; (2) criteria for testing the justifiability of political and military intervention in “wars of national liberation” and (3) criteria for deciding the moral problems of means peculiar to counter-insurgency warfare. Our analysis of the papers will be ordered in terms of these three points. Inasmuch as the first point is the fundamental one for a Christian political ethic, it will be used to delineate the typology.