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Second, it was essential that this book transcend political ideology. The world is chock full of politicians. Statesmen are considerably rarer. Note Albright's reasoned tone:

We are not, I am convinced, as divided as we sometimes seem. Most of us do not want our leaders confusing their own will with God's, but neither do we want them to ignore religious and moral principles. We support the separation of church and state, but not the enforced separation of religion from the public life of our nation. Many of us pray regularly that God will guide our leaders. We hope that those who make decisions in our name will think hard about questions of right and wrong. We want them to protect us but also to make us proud.

Of course, nothing will appease hysterical ideologues, but Albright elevates our discourse and helps to dampen the vitriol of our present culture wars. To date, few books have been able to do this.

Finally, since it is impossible to write a book free from political observations, balance would be required to maintain credibility with a diverse audience. Albright's critique of some of President Bush's Iraqi policies, for example, is appropriate, but it is also appropriately muted, given what I would call the "fog of governance" that afflicts all presidents in times of great international complexities. Blessed be the tie that binds! For the most part, all points on the ideological spectrum receive the same reasoned critique. Albright writes:

Fighting poverty is not, of course, just a matter of shoveling money in the direction of the poor. Historically, the left has put too much faith in aid administered through foreign governments while the right has preached discredited ideas of trickle down economics. Both sides have grown more sophisticated.

Whenever hindsight is codified, a greater humility seems to emerge. Humility is the great connector, the balancing fulcrum across generational, ideological, and party lines. The world is a difficult place, and all of us will share common struggles as we experience and engage a fallen world.

Albright concludes with a cautious observation, reiterating the leitmotif of Bill Clinton's introduction, "To have faith is to believe in the existence of absolute truth. It is quite another thing to assert that imperfect human beings can be in full possession of this truth, or that we have a political ideology that is fully true and allows us to penalize, coerce, or abuse those who believe differently."

What do we do with our absolutes? All people of faith believe in absolutes, we just don't know them absolutely. Someday perhaps we will, and certainly we can draw closer to the mind of God. But for now we worship a God whose "thoughts and ways" are many flight levels above our own (Isaiah 55:9), a God who warns us that a smudged mirror cannot reveal all (1 Corinthians 13:12). If such verses don't drive us to circumspection and humility, neither the power of the mighty nor the spiritual transcendence of the Almighty will produce the positive results we all want to see in this world.

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June (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50