Last month marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of the failed bombing intended to assassinate the German Führer Adolf Hitler at his Wolf’s Lair field headquarters in what is now Gierłoż, Poland. The anniversary offers the opportunity to reflect not only on the nature of courage in dark times, but on the character and limits of Christian resistance to political evil.

Just war theorists should agree that war must be waged according to the rule of law if it is to be considered an exercise of “legitimate authority.” The American system, with its marbling of war powers between the executive and legislative branches, usually requires authorization based on the deliberative consent of the popular will expressed through the people’s representatives in Congress.

On PBS News Hour, David Brooks quoted St. Augustine to criticize President Trump’s response toward the Saudis for the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Was Brooks right about Augustine?

St. Thomas Aquinas’ ideas about just war still affect how Americans feel about wars, including World War II and the Persian Gulf War.

When is lying permissible in war? Mark Coppenger indicates several instances in the Christian just war tradition but insists there is no room for perfidy or treachery.

Christians should remember this: any political theology that treats its own people as a divinely chosen political community treads on heretical soil.

Following the Christian just war tradition, could the assassination of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad be justified, despite its illegal nature?

Force is always only the form love takes against terrible evil in the last resort when nothing else will protect the innocent, restore justice, and bring about the conditions for peace. The old Chestertonian nugget remains: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

Augustine’s influence runs deep and broad through Western Christian doctrine and ethics. This paper focuses on two particular examples of this influence: his thinking on political order and on just war.