Just War Tradition

Eric Patterson spoke at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia, about how just war thinking can provide analysis on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Paul Miller and Daniel Darling discussed how Christians should think about the war in Ukraine at an event hosted by the Land Center on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on April 12, 2022.

The war in Ukraine, with its indiscriminate slaughter and mass murder of thousands, forces us to admit the reality of evil.

This week the editors discuss Debra Erickson’s article about why the Russia-Ukraine War is not World War III, an exchange about pacifism and the just war tradition, and a 75-year-old article about Easter and the resurrection.

I appreciate Michael McKoy’s recent “What Does Pacifism Have to Say About Ukraine?” But I remain unimpressed by the pacifist view.

Pacifism argues that the only means of breaking the cycles of violence is to recognize the short-term and long-term devastation of war, examine the decisions and dynamics that perpetuate these cycles, and make the tough decisions necessary to reject violence and ensure peace.

As the Russia-Ukraine War continues, is World War III inevitable—or has a new kind of world war already begun?

If order is the attainable and justice the possible, then (re)conciliation is the desirable. Conciliation is future-focused in that it sees former enemies as partners in a shared future.

The West is not responsible for Putin’s war. But Western democracies are responsible for whether they live by the values that set them apart from the values that animate Putin’s imperial fantasy, and for whether they defend those values against attack.