“Western diplomats don’t get religion”

I’ve complained for a long time that Western statecraft — predominantly conducted, I think it’s perhaps safe to say, by people of merely nominal or even no religious beliefs — has failed to take religious factors into account, both domestically and, with much more serious results, in our foreign policy.  One doesn’t need to be a believer to do so.  But one must do so, in order to realistically assess situations in the world that actually exists around us and to formulate suitable responses.

I sounded this theme just over three years ago, in the inaugural installment of the biweekly Saturday column that Bill Hamblin and I do for Salt Lake City’s Deseret News.  Now, here’s a retired career foreign service officer who’s saying similar things:

http://philosproject.org/western-diplomats-dont-get-religion/