A seminar course surveying key, contemporary issues in politics & international studies. The course provides substantial space for independent student research, including opportunity to develop research questions, with special attention to foundational issues in those questions, that may lead to further study in graduate school. Priority will be given to Christian approaches to perennial issues in politics & international studies such as order and diversity, populism and polarization, neo-liberalism and development, the role of the institutional church, nationalism, humanitarian intervention, and responsibilities in and to the global commons (such as the environment).