Can Government Be Moral?
Seeking Faith & Wisdom in International Relations

Israel Soong,  former Director of Cyber Policy at the White House National Security Council

October 23rd, 2024
6:00 pm EST Reception with hearty hors d’oeuvres to follow
Physical Sciences Building 120 or via Zoom

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With our round-the-clock gaze on the world, we can’t help but ask questions about the moral nature of government. One historic answer to this question is to say that government has no values, only its own self-interest to preserve a nation. Here, Christians have no responsibility in the public square. A second answer is that Christians should seek to compel the government to conform with Christian moral values. If one option too quickly shirks moral responsibility, the second naively over-idealizes it. Might there be another, more historically Christian way to engage our Christian political responsibility among the realities of a post-Christian fallen world?

Israel (Izzy) Soong; Former Director of Cyber Policy at the White House National Security Council

Israel Soong is former Director of Cyber Policy for the White House National Security Council. While at the NSC, Israel coordinated inter-agency efforts to counter nation-state cyber threats to the United States critical infrastructure, and efforts to bolster the cyber security of allied and partner nations in the Indo-Pacific. Before entering government service, Israel was a senior vice president for strategy at a software company in the United States, and regional vice president for an IT security company based in Asia and the Middle East. He has been a part-time seminary student at Westminster Theological Seminary, and has written for The Gospel Coalition and for the Tennent School of Theology.  He graduated from Cornell with a BS in policy analysis in 1996 and obtained a JD from Harvard Law School and an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard in 2001.  He enjoys kayaking, biking, and hiking Civil War battlefields.

This event is a part of Chesterton House’s Faith & Public Life Series