War

The observance of the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has garnered reflection, especially about the nature of apologies.

This is a great story. A necessary story. It should be told to our children over supper. And every time we retell it we must, ourselves, attend to it closely for this story is also a greatly clarifying story. It helps to brush aside much of the twaddle that passes for contemporary moral wisdom, including within the Christian culture. But precisely what has it clarified? Three things, primarily…

It was a terrible anniversary. Seventy years ago this past week, at zero eight fifteen hours, August 6th, 1945, the Enola Gay, a U.S. Army Air Force B-29, dropped an 8,900-pound bomb, dubbed “Little Boy”, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later a second bomb, Fat Man, fell upon Nagasaki.

God can be loved and worshipped on the battlefield, and pacifism as opposed to soldiering stands as an exception to the Christian norm.

The recent surge in interest in moral injury has been largely motivated by psychiatric battle casualties suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan, but of course combat veterans throughout history have staggered home suffering not necessarily from physical injuries as classically perceived but injured all the same.

In the just war tradition, war (and therefore torture) are not only sometimes morally permissible but obligatory in order to restrain the enemy from sin.

The headlines are exasperating, if a bit hyperbolic: Reuters writes, “Pope Says Weapons Manufacturers Can’t Call Themselves Christians” while the Daily Beast puts it, “Pope: Gun Makers Are Not Christians.”

Reflections on how people choose to spend Memorial Day and how this relates to Christian pacifism.