"theirs is an exhausted project. It is time for the Church – and the polity – to move on."

The reason the neocon / theocon project is exhausted isn't because of the tiredness of certain responses to the Civilta article but rather because their decades-long collusion finally culminated in the election of one Donald J. Trump, the very antithesis of anything remotely Christian. It was easy to avoid the soul-searching when George W. Bush was POTUS - his breezy "wear it on your sleeve" brand of Christianity was easily bought by the masses and was never questioned. Now we have someone whose "values" mostly consist of lying endlessly and expanding his own financial portfolio, usually at other people's expense. So it's no longer feasible to avoid the long-overdue soul-searching regarding the merits and pitfalls of jumping into bed with Caesar. More than anything or anyone, Donald Trump has shown where it eventually leads - no place any true Christian should ever want to go. Yet here we are.