Just War Tradition

Christianity can provide us with a clear lens with which to scrutinize the Paris terror attacks. They were deliberate, unrestrained, unprovoked, and unlawful (extra-judicial) mass murder perpetrated by sadistic criminals on unsuspecting, legally innocent civilian victims.

Not only is the United States morally justified to possess nuclear weapons and to credibly threaten their employment, it would be immoral and inimical to the principles of Christian just war theory for the U.S. government to adopt the disarmament agenda.

Wanted: A Foreign Policy of Responsibility & Limits

The carnage one hundred years ago on the Somme was appalling. And because of Haig’s excessive strategic ambition, it was inefficiently appalling. But that didn’t make it futile.

Jesus’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31) leads to the core question: who is my neighbor? Although he answers with a parable, Jesus surprisingly does not directly define the term but, rather, he demonstrates something greater. But drawing lessons from this parable today presents a challenge. The world is much bigger, the problems often larger, the potential danger much higher, opinions more varied, and the methods and means at our disposal far more vast. As the scenario is changed, how does the lesson in the parable influence what we do? What if the Samaritan showed up a few minutes earlier, while the robbery was occurring? What is the appropriate response then?

In the shadow cast by 9/11, it was difficult to believe something could be worse than al-Qaeda 1.0. But with American nightclubs and office buildings awash in blood, with Europe under siege, with Christians and Yazidis targeted for extermination, with the Pandora’s Box of chemical warfare reopened, with the female populations of entire cities enslaved, here we are.

We all live under debt.

The first visit to Hiroshima by a sitting US head of state reminds us that the end of war is peace

Christian ethicists should read less moral theology and political philosophy and more history.