As Henry Kissinger emphasizes in his new book World Order, the fundamental building block of all American and international engagement over the past hundred years — namely, the nation state and the Westphalian system in which states are embedded — is particularly weak in the Middle East due to fragile national roots and competing local and universalist identities, including pan-Arabic movements and messianic religious calls from the likes of Iran's ayatollahs and ISIS. (businessinsider.com)
Religious Calling, the Priesthood, and My Father. (firstthings.com)
Novelist Jane Austen grew up in a culture in which clerical office was more often a professional and financial choice than a religious calling, in which Christianity was synonymous with the British Empire, and in which religion was a product of context. (firstthings.com)