Just War Tradition

Against pacifist sentiment and calls for isolationism, Reinhold Niebuhr insisted on a realistic Christian response to political crises, one willing to dirty its hands to avoid catastrophic evil. However, his dialectic between love and justice produces a catastrophic paradox.

Christian pacifism became untenable for me because the God who punished, killed, and destroyed in the Old Testament remains the God of the New Testament.

This article about the viewpoints of Christians & the Church in response to World War II was originally published in Christianity & Crisis on June 15, 1942.

With his novel concept of sovereign obligation in A World in Disarray, Richard Haass makes an important advance in the search for peace in a disoriented world. But its advances fall short, unable to grasp the essential moral quality of world order.

Why is the just war tradition seemingly so easily abused?

It is said that victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan. In the case of NATO’s military intervention in Libya six years ago, both sides of the adage seem to apply.

A necessary punitive act watched by China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia.

A profoundly violent, sublimely beautiful film

The First Marine Division’s paragon of virtue, Chesty Puller, upheld the standards of just warfighting and respect, if not love, of the enemy. We pray his progeny leading the defense of our nation today will do the same.