Inferno: It was four years ago that a Scandinavian politician mournfully suggested Europe was again ripe for war. After all, eighty years had passed since the end of the last world war, and peace, he suggested, was nearing the end of its rope. How right he was. Now, with the United Nations also at the end of its rope, seven nations are at war: the United States, Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, and Ukraine, not to mention the recent skirmish between Thailand and Cambodia and civil wars raging in Sudan and Somalia. This does not include spiteful trade tension. All that keeps the world from conflagration is that the U.S., most European states, and China view the chaos in the abstract. But the situation is infinitely delicate. If the Middle East conflict grows more dire, if Russia challenges the Baltics, or if India becomes caught up in Pakistan’s fight, a pre–World War I scenario will come into focus. Leaving combat aside, the world — minus today’s sports-obsessed America — has not seemed so stricken with worry about the future since the mid-1950s, when all feared an impending nuclear holocaust. What is regrettable is that the American president is at least in part responsible for accelerating the chaos, his supporters inserting evangelical zeal into the equation. In a word, all this is Jesus’ will. If so, we are, more than ever, children of a lesser Christ.