I agree that “This world is an abyss, as fallen and corrupt; we cannot even know justice in this world, though we sense painfully its absence; we cannot experience it amid the flux of human passions. His creation of a radical aporia between the order of Justice (God) and of the world insists that the two cannot and shall not meet — and only fools and philosophers think they could. He thus presumes war will continue and, in a sense, should continue, because it has nothing to do with the economy of our redemption and everything to do with the conditions that remind us daily of our need to be redeemed.”

Only an overly idealistic, naive pacifist would disagree with that summary of Pascalian thought. Evangelicals such as myself, who believe in a millenarian return of Christ, are especially cognizant of the fallenness of the world and the futility of trying to create the kingdom on earth without Christ’s literal presence (although that does not excuse us from doing our best, in humble and realistic ways, to encourage justice through personal acts). In other words, the full-blown kingdom is not going to be created by the church alone. The radical, permanent restructuring of the world and its values will occur upon the return of Christ.

I don’t expect that pacifism will ever spread through the earth in this age and it is clearly unworkable, in terms of human government. Obama DOES have a duty to use military force, as Bush did before him. He can use it justly or not (and that’s where Aquinas’ criteria have some utility, although they are too broadly drawn and subjectively interpreted), but you can’t expect a lion to behave like a lamb. U.S. presidents have a right and duty to use force as worldly leaders, but not as Christians.

Pascal’s pessimism regarding the world is similar to that of another Augustinian: Luther. Both fit into the “Christ and culture in paradox” (dualistic) camp, as defined by H. Richard Niebuhr. Neither were as radical in their sociopolitical application of the Gospel as were the Anabaptists, but they were set apart from other positions, exemplified by Aquinas and Calvin, for instance, which were more likely to accomodate or have sanguinity toward the world.

Pascal was not a pure pacifist, but he recognized the irrationality of war, and he objected to the watering down of moral standards to suit worldly-minded Christians, which is why I quote him.

Again, thank you for contributing, even if we disagree on some things. The same to Marshall Art, who is obviously intelligent and knowledgeable. I’m glad you’ve taken the time to participate in our little, or not so little, discussion.

No doubt, no good thing, including Christianity, can itself be spread by the sword; and yet, as we know, God has brought good from evil many times in our history, as conquest became the occasion for ministry and conversion. But evangelization has never been the chief reason men engaged in war, and so the question one should ask is What does Christianity teach us about the wars in which men have always historically engaged? There are three competing answers:

Yours, which suggests as did that of some ancient Christians, that the Christian must be a pacifist. If all Christians were pacifists, they would be dead, but they would not by martyrs (witnesses), because there would be no one left to whom their deaths would witness save their executioners.

Pascal’s, which you misrepresent. The point of Pascal’s passage, and that of all the passages gathered in Chapter V of the Pensees is that true justice is impossible in this world. This world is an abyss, as fallen and corrupt; we cannot even know justice in this world, though we sense painfully its absence; we cannot experience it amid the flux of human passions. His creation of a radical aporia between the order of Justice (God) and of the world insists that the two cannot and shall not meet — and only fools and philosophers think they could. He thus presumes war will continue and, in a sense, should continue, because it has nothing to do with the economy of our redemption and everything to do with the conditions that remind us daily of our need to be redeemed.

Aquinas’s, whose four criteria sound helpful and compelling: a) gravity and certainty of the danger posed; b)last resort; c) likely success; d) proportion, where likely result is less dire than the posed danger. These criteria are only meaningful if we presume that human reason can attain a partial and prudential knowledge of justice; that the world itself is not pure corruption, but still manifests within itself the goodness of God and not merely the falleness of mankind. We must presume, in other words, that we can meaningfully speak about temporal justice without in the process necessarily engaging in self-deception.

These criteria can only be applied by the legitimate leader who would actually wage war, and not by, say, a priest or bishop, because each of them requires knowledge internal to the decision. Could John Paul II have known whether Iraq possessed nuclear arms? Could it say for certain that the U.S. had failed to exercise every alternative before the invasion?

The Iraq war was not a just war, we can say decisively in retrospect; and if the Bush administration had not been pursuing a larger agenda to remake the post-Cold War world under U.S. hegemony, none of us would have even entertained the possibility. But, your suggestion that the Pope should have “condemned” the Iraq was as unjust (which he did not, though he opposed the war) would be tantamount to your giving me authority in the following situation: a robber attacks you in a dark alley, you see that he has a knife and knows how to use it, and you prepare to defend yourself even to the extent of possibily killing the robber. Would you wait for my consultation before doing so? Would you hang upon my judgment about the relative capacities of the robber’s knife, or would you feel that your own judgments, internal to the situation, have a certain autonomy?

The Vicar of Christ did during the Iraq War what Jesus teaches in the Gospel: turning the other cheek does not mean merely taking another licking; in presenting one’s other cheek to be struck, one puts the moral onus on the agent. “Think a moment,” it says, “Do you really believe you should do this?” Only the legitimate executive of the law of the U.S. could have performed this act of moral scrutiny.

Nonetheless, that doesn’t change the probable fact that the Iraq war was founded on lies and ambition (what mix of which we still do not know). I merely want to establish that a) just war doctrine rightly suggests that the use of force is a legitimate indeed fully justified action under certain conditions, and that this affirms the presence of justice in the world rather than serves (as Pascal thought) as a concession to the total depravation of mankind; and, b) that the decisions that just war doctrine guides are proper to heads of state; it is not a weapon of the Church, but a doctrinal guideline to help human beings make a particular kind of decision proper to their particular vocation. To ask for something different would turn the Church into a rationalized technocracy rather than the voice of the Gospel reminding us all of our personal responsibility for our own actions.

Thank you for your knowledgeable summation, Siarlys. There are different types of Muslims, and differing levels of commitment and sincerity, and various degrees of accommodation with culture, just as there are among Christians. Most of the Muslims I have known (from Bosnia, Somalia, and Sudan) have become Americanized, for better and worse, to the extent that jihad terrorism and forceable conversion hold no interest for them. That’s not to deny that there are Muslims in the U.S. and elsewhere who are violent fanatics who need to be kept in check by various legal (not military) methods, including force and punishment when necessary. But to hate, fear, or kill all Muslims is an untenable position.

Marshall writes, “Those Americans opposed to war against Hitler turned out to be real fools, didn’t they?” I don’t think so. Even if they were wrong, it does not make what they were doing foolish. They were being true to their principles, given the information and their understanding at the time. Committed to the traditional U.S. foreign policy of neutrality in European imperial conflicts, preferring a republic rather than an empire, suspicious of a vast military establishment, and skeptical of FDR’s veracity and motivation, they opposed U.S. entry into the war. They included a majority of Americans right up to Pearl Harbor. Few were pacifists. Christian pacifism has never found much support in America. They were realists.

Marshall assumes that conquest of half of Europe by Stalin and the Communists was preferable to conquest by Hitler and the Fascists. Perhaps, but it does not make the anti-interventionists foolish. Many of them were concerned about the ripple effects of an alliance with Stalin. Marshall’s breezy dismissal of Robert Taft, Burton Wheeler, Bennett Champ Clark, Charles Lindbergh, Robert McCormick, General Robert Wood, General Smedley Butler, and other patriots implies a Panglossian view of the world. FDR and Churchill maneuvered a resistant nation into the war and what a wonderful world we’ve had as a result. It is also surprising that someone who is presumably a conservative is so hostile to his conservative forebears. Intervention in the war was led by liberal Democratic internationalists, with an assist from their Republican counterparts. The conservative nationalists of the day were united in opposition to war.

Marshall writes, “Early in our nation’s history, as we lost cargo and sailors to the Barbary pirates, (before we had a Navy to kick butt) …” We did have a navy during the Jefferson administration but it was not the sprawling, expensive entity that was developed a century later. Republicans like Jefferson were suspicious of a standing army and navy for good reason. A large, permanent, professional military class is a threat to liberty at home, a burden on taxpayers, and a tool of ambitious rulers. Exactly why Hamilton was so enamored with militarism. His heroes included Caesar and Bonaparte. Today, we live in a Hamiltonian nation, despite the innate “isolationism” of most Americans.

The U.S. Navy’s website (http://www.navy.com) is entitled “America’s Navy: A Global Force for Good” Oh, thanks for letting us know. Note the emphasis on “global.” National defense is passé in an age of global empire. That’s why we needed a Department of Homeland Security, the creation of which was a tacit admission that the Department of Defense was not defending our nation. It was too busy maintaining our global empire (or being a global force for good). BTW, euphemistically equating military violence with “kicking butt” sounds more like Toby Keith than Jesus Christ.

Marshall writes, “I’m unaware of any stories of Chinese or Saudi leaders brutalizing for fun.” I think to refer to brutalization “for fun” trivializes the oppression and atrocities of all concerned. I don’t think a desire for fun has motivated Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, the Saud monarchy and its Wahhabi religious allies, or the Chinese communists. There are various motivations, including power and fanaticism, but “fun” isn’t one of them. And to lump Hussein and bin Laden together, Iraq and Afghanistan together, is illogical. They have little in common. Hussein was no more a devout Muslim statesman than was Cheney a devout Christian statesman. Also, the oppression of the Chinese leadership (which has been consistently courted and coddled by the U.S. business and political elites since the 1960s) is on a scale that dwarfs anything envisioned by the governments of Iraq, Afghanistan, or Iran. There is no moral consistency because money and geopolitics are at stake. This inconsistency casts doubt on the stated moral concerns of our government about the “Axis of Evil.” Our friendliness with Red Chinese dictators also calls into question our government’s professed motivation for the Cold War.

While I partly agree with Marshall’s point distinguishing Islamic belligerency from Christian belligerency, he condemns his own theological position by writing, “Muslims kill because their religion tells them to. Christians kill by twisting Scripture to justify it.” If we have to twist Scripture to justify killing, maybe we shouldn’t kill.

One correction I’d like to make to my December 14 comment: I called C.S. Lewis’ essay “Why I Am Not a Pacifist” weak. Upon rereading the essay, I realized I was wrong. I disagree with it, but it’s strong. James Tillman was right about that.

I’ve spent more time reading the Bible than reading the Qu’ran, but I have a reasonably good working knowledge of the latter. How much of it have you read? How many Muslims do you know personally? Have you read the history of the Rashidun caliphs, the Ummayad caliphs, the Abassid caliphs? Do you know the difference between the caliphate of Baghdad and the Fatamid caliphate of Egypt? The quarrel between them helped make the initial success of the crusades possible. Do you know the difference between Muhammed Ali Jinnah and Zia ul-Haq? Do you know the relation of the Seljuk Turks to the Abassid caliphs, the difference between the Ottoman and Seljuk Turks, or why Mustafa Kemal insisted on a secular state on the ruins of an empire technically a successor to the caliphate? Oh, and how about the Ummayad caliphate of Cordoba?

I am not unlearned in the fact that Islam has, many times in its history generated violent Jihad against both neighboring Muslims and neighboring non-Muslims. That would include the Almoravids, the Almohades, and the more recent exploits of Ahmad al-Kabir in the western Sudan. I suggest you read God’s Crucible, by David Levering Lewis, Africa, Biography of the Continent by John Reader, and a bit of the Qu’ran, and talk to a few American Muslims, before expecting blanket statements like “you don’t know anything” to be taken seriously. Then, we would need more time and space than this site offers to really sort out all the relevant facts and categories and periods. The fact that there are so many facts and categories and periods to sort out was actually my original point.

Now, as to the Barbary pirates, they were a peculiar result of the Ottoman sultans being too weak to exercise jurisdiction over the further reaches of their nominal empire, the opportunities to prey on the Spanish empire at the height of its wealth (not unlike the Brethren of the Coast, used to such good effect by the English in securing Jamaica), and the fact that most kingdoms in Europe would cheerfully pay them bribes to be left alone. There was little of religious fervor to that episode. Do you think al Qaeda would even consider being paid a bribe not to hijack our planes, even if we were so foolish as to offer it?

Now perhaps you are aware that part of the operation in the Mediterranean was endeavoring to replace the Bashaw of Tripoli, Yusuf Karamanli, with our ally, Hamet, who had a plausible claim of his own to the throne. Oh yes, in between the marines bombarding Tripoli, the American navy was thick with our own Muslim allies. There is no point in treating all Muslims as our natural enemies — if we repeat that often enough, they might all start to believe it, and act accordingly. How do you think Lawrence of Arabia lined up a whole series of Arabic tribes to fight against the Turkish empire? They hated the Turkish empire, even if the Sultan was nominally the Commander of the Faithful. Sort of like, the Pope commands all Christians, right? Never did.

No more than I can imagine Christ presenting a parable of a man who, claiming another guy might get beat up, slays those he suspects of intending to–and alleges are able to–perpetrate the hypothetical attack.

Fortunately, none of us needs to imagine Christ presenting any parables other than those He actually told. Which, IMO, are quite sufficient to guide and inform our Christian behavior.

You beg the question when you write, “I wouldn’t be killing them out of a desire to kill anyone, but to protect others from them. That’s a noble thing, a good thing and a Christian thing to do.” This is question-begging, precisely because whether or not violence is ever “the Christian thing to do” is being contested here. And it’s being contested for good reasons (thanks to Jeff Taylor for pointing some of them out).

You show little evidence of thinking christologically, i.e., in and from the self-revelation of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It becomes difficult to pen sentences like the one just quoted if begin to think from the witness of Christ. For if killing people to protect others is the Christian thing to do, we have to say, on the basis of the witness of the scriptures, that Christ was the first non-Christian. When the crunch came and the powers colluded to kill God’s Son, he refused to fight with the weapons of this world.

Thus, if allowing the wicked to do harm against the innocent is a grave moral failure, then we can say that God is guilty of the gravest moral failure, not only for allowing evil acts against innocent people to continue daily, but even more for giving up his own innocent Son to torture and crucifixion.

Lastly, the theological critique of violence doesn’t turn on it being the most effective way to stop other peoples’ violence. It doesn’t always work (though neither does violence). Rather, Christian nonviolence turns on conformity with the shape of God’s will for the world manifested in Jesus. Jesus’s own triumph over sin and death was hardly effective in any simple since—he was crucified. His was no dreamy-eyed idealism, since he seemed to know all along the way what his summons to radical love would ultimately entail. No, defeat was evidently a part of a larger plan, one that would involve swallowing up death and defeat in final victory.

We don’t have to follow Jesus in our day, as many elected not to in his day. But if we do want to follow him, we should think twice about taking up means to fight evil that were renounced by the One we claim to follow.

That we did not go to Iraq with the perfect plan is really besides the point. There was a sense of urgency, particularly after 9/11, with regards to taking the initiative rather than sit back and wait for another (please don’t bring up Iraq/9-11 connections as I don’t mean to imply there were any—but it doesn’t matter). With that urgency, we went with what we had. Scum will not wait until you have the best plan in place. We could have done a better job at the start, but to have waited could also have made it more difficult. It’s something we will never know, but feel free to assume an air of satisfaction as an “I told you so” kind of person if you think you saw it as a bad idea. Some just don’t get it.

Those Americans opposed to war against Hitler turned out to be real fools, didn’t they? Of course we weren’t prepared when he invaded Poland and we weren’t when Pearl was attacked. But unlike today, the nation came together and mobilized in a manner not seen since (and for which we as a nation should be ashamed–such mobilization could cure many of our nation’s ills).

Siarlys Jenkins knows little of Islam to contend it hasn’t been consistent in its history. Despite conflict between sects, they all come together against things non-Islam. Indeed, they would unite to convert or enslave us all and then fight amongst each other later if they could. Early in our nation’s history, as we lost cargo and sailors to the Barbary pirates, (before we had a Navy to kick butt), our ambassador was told the same things we are told by the radicals now. In fact, you can look it up and see that people like bin Laden use almost the exact same words. The religion was spread in its infancy under the very same concept that the radicals fight under today. It is those who are the least zealous that we need to find and support if they are willing to live in peace. The true Islamic believers are the ones that most closely resemble Muhammed and his murderous followers. There is nothing in the history of Christianity that compares because there is nothing in Christianity that can be interpreted to compel the same behavior. Muslims kill because their religion tells them to. Christians kill by twisting Scripture to justify it. No comparison.

Mark Higdon,

You’ve simply restated my comments. I said that our actions were as if the Samaritan acted before the victim suffered the mugging. Can you imagine Christ presenting a parable of a man watching a guy getting his ass kicked, letting it continue to its conclusion and THEN helping the guy? No. He came upon him after the fact. But just try talking a mugger, or group of them, out of their plan and see how that works for you. If it’s one guy, you might scare him off to look for another opportunity where he can again try to isolate one victim. But if there’s two or more, they’ll likely beat you as well. What do you do? You can try to talk them out of it, but will likely have to fight or take a beating yourself. If the victim can run away, you’ve laid down your life. If he gets beaten, too, you’ve accomplished nothing on his behalf.

Octopus,

I’m unaware of any stories of Chinese or Saudi leaders brutalizing for fun. Plus, they haven’t shown themselves to be openly messing with their neighbors in the manner that Hussein has with Kuwait and Israel. That we haven’t taken on every scumbag in the world at the same time is a lame argument. As far as St. Francis, I’m unaware of any such stories of him versus Islam. But I am aware of is that 790 years later, we still have Muslims killing Americans and other innocents around the world.

Here’s the thing: If we could gather all the radicals together and convince them that we’re nice guys and that their ways are really, really bad and they should give them up, that would be swell. But we can’t even get gang-bangers to cut the crap and most of them would rather not die for their cause. There is nothing we can offer the radicals that they’d want other than conversion to Islam or subservience to them. Feel free if you like. I’ll fight them should the need for my services arise and I believe God will not condemn me for it. That’s because I wouldn’t be killing them out of a desire to kill anyone, but to protect others from them. That’s a noble thing, a good thing and a Christian thing to do.

Allowing intention to determine Christian morality and ethics is a gigantic loophole, not only for war but for all kinds of unChristian behavior. You could make the same argument used on behalf of Christian violence for Christian homosexuality. If two men love each other and have good intentions, why should their union not be sanctified by the church and recognized by the state? Or if a man is stuck in a loveless marriage with a nagging wife, and he finds someone for whom he really cares and he intends to treat her well and he thanks God for this new love, why should he be criticized for breaking his marriage vows? Presto: Christian adultery. If intention trumps all, then all of the commandments and prescriptions of Christ and his apostles come to nought.

If you think this is far-fetched, consider the case made for same-sex marriage by many professing Christians. “But they love each other!” is the foundational argument. Giving so much power to individual intention is a variety of moral relativism. Ethics are no longer objective; they become subjective. You see this problem today not only with modernist Protestants and mushy evangelicals, but also with mushy Catholics. In the latest issue of Chronicles, “Joe Ecclesia” provides this story to his RC bishop:

“On another occasion, having grown loose with wine, a Protestant named Amanda told me, ‘I have this thing for bad boys, dependent guys, you know.’ Troubled by her promiscuity, and encouraged by a coworker, she atteded a retreat at a convent. There she sought out a nun for counseling … After Amanda had dilineated her penchant for sex and men, the nun regarded her gravely. ‘Do you give these men pleasure?’ she asked. ‘I’m pretty sure I do,’ Amanda said … The nun asked, ‘Do you give them love?’ Amanda nodded. ‘Do you give of yourself?’ Amanda nodded again. The nun smiled and said, ‘Love is the key. You bring love to lonely souls. As long as your ideal is pleasure and comfort for them, there is no sin.’”

Also, don’t forget that humans are capable of immense deception. We deceive others and we deceive ourselves. What was George W. Bush’s intention in waging war in Iraq? Was it really what he stated publicly? Did he even acknowledge to himself his real motivation? Motives are also rarely unmixed. What was Dick Cheney’s intention? I suspect it was something less than pure, and he was more likely than Bush to be calling the shots back in 2001-03.

When Marshall says, “Too often, history has shown, war is what brought about peace,” I think he and I have different definitions of the word “peace.” Orwell’s War is Peace slogan comes to mind. They are opposites. War does not produce peace any more than evil produces good. Mental gymnastics can make a case, but it’s nonsense in the real world. As the Master said, an evil tree brings forth evil fruit and cannot bring forth good fruit (Mt. 7:15-20). He also noted that Satan cannot cast out Satan; only the Spirit of God can do that (Mt. 12:22-28).

World War II is often the first and last refuge for war advocates. How can anyone challenge the necessity of the “Good War” by the “Greatest Generation”? Before I do some challenging, I would stipulate up front that I think it’s a mistake for Christians to allow worldly events (history) to interpret, or sit in judgement of, kingdom principles (Christian ethics). That’s a backwards approach. But if we want to hold the utility and reality of the Sermon on the Mount up to the light of World War II, let’s ask what that war accomplished.

First, I’d repeat what I wrote above, “World War II was caused by imperialism and violence, not neutrality and peace. If all governments had minded their own business, in a humble and truly defensive way, and eschewed violence, there would not have been all of the bloodshed, suffering, and chaos. You object to Christians in the U.S. advocating pacifism. What about Christians in Nazi Germany? Were they correct in loyally cheering on the army and navy of the Third Reich? Would a little more pacifism on the part of German Lutherans and Catholics not have benefited their own country and the rest of the world?”

Second, I’d note that our (American) involvement in WWII was not motivated by a desire to save the Jews or to defend ourselves. The U.S. elite gushed over Mussolini throughout the 1920s. Hitler was obviously evil, but our government had relatively friendly relations with him throughout the 1930s. Fascism was not the problem, from our policy makers’ perspective. Stalin was no better than Hitler yet we allied ourselves with his regime throughout the first half of the 1940s.

WWII produced about 60 million deaths and a great deal more suffering, in terms of wounds, suffering, and fear. WWII did not prevent the Holocaust. WWII set the stage for four decades of Cold War. It allowed Stalin to conquer millions in Eastern Europe and keep them enslaved to an imperial power and local despots for 40 years. WWII triggered the creation of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction: the atomic bomb. For the first time, human beings were able to destroy the planet. A scientific advance, but not so much a step toward morality or wisdom. We used that weapon twice on Japanese civilians, having previously bombed German and Japanese civilians with conventional weapons (thereby further eroding social and governmental morality when it came to war).

WWII accelerated “modernization,” which had some beneficial effects to American society but many baneful as well. WWII laid to rest the traditional U.S. foreign policy of neutrality and nonintervention (“isolationism”), institutionalizing “perpetual war for perpetual peace” (Beard and Barnes) and the garrison state at home. Big government and big business received a windfall. Small government, frugal republicanism, free enterprise, and civil liberties took a hit.

A case can made that WWII was, on balance, a good thing, but it was obviously not only a good thing. It was also a bad thing. If the Allied victory–and the Allies included Stalin and Mao–is praised as necessary and good (and from a political science perspective I won’t argue with that assertion), it is stacking the deck to ignore the less-good side effects. The Good War was also the Bad War.

As big as it was, the primacy of WWII in our minds is in some ways an illusion. Christians point to WWII in justifying war, but should it loom so large in our mind to the exclusion of New Testament teachings and the example of the early, pre-Constantine church? WWII was not the second “world war,” from a European perspective. There was Alexander. There were the Roman conquests under the republic and the empire. Charlemagne and the HRE. The Crusades. The Hundred Years’ War, the Thirty Years’ War, the War of the Spanish Successsion, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years’ War, the Napoleonic Wars. All were big in their day. All involving multiple nations and grand alliances. All producing much bloodshed and suffering. All were justified and glorified by religion, be it pagan or Christian.

If the world survives another 500 years, WWII will be forgotten except among academics. Instead, Christians will be invoking World War IX or the War of the Chinese Succession to justify wholesale violence. There’s nothing new under the sun. When we cite a specific war to trump the words of Christ, we fall victim to the traps of being time and place-bound. We should learn from history, and we can do our best to create a better history, but it should not determine our morals.

Lastly, Marshall’s argument that personal intention is the basis of Christian ethics reminded me immediately of Pascal’s argument against Jesuit casuistry in his Provincial Letters (1656-57). Our friends at Wikipedia sum up the PL: “Pascal denounced casuistry as the mere use of complex reasoning to justify moral laxity and all sorts of sins.” Letter VII is especially relevant. It shows how some Jesuit theologians used the concept of “directing the intention” to allow professing Christians to “perform certain awkward commissions with a good conscience” by “deflecting their intention from the evil of which they are the accessories and applying it to the profit they get out of it.” Homicide was specifically justified in this way. Loopholes were supplied to the rich and powerful to get around the law of the Gospel which bids us “not to render evil for evil, and to leave vengeance to God.”

In his introduction to the Provincial Letters, A.J. Krailsheimer observes, “When the Jesuits became confessors to the great and began to move in high society, they were particularly anxious not to dismay their penitents with excessive rigour, and tried to adapt the traditional moral teachings of the Church to the imperious demands of a formally Christian but essentially worldly society. Their casuists began to make concessions to the highly born which lesser beings could not be expected to enjoy, but which set a tone.”

In Letter XIV, Pascal–an Augustinian in his view of devotion and grace–addressed the Jesuits directly: “The chaste bride of God’s son who, like her bridegroom, knows how to shed her blood for others, but not to shed the blood of others for herself, has a particular horror of murder, in accordance with the particular enlightenment bestowed by God. She considers all men not merely as men, but as made in the image of the God she worships. She has a holy respect for each of them, which makes them all worthy of veneration, as being redeemed at an infinite price to be made temples of the living God. Thus she believes that the death of a man killed without the orders of God is not only murder but sacrilege…”

Pascal, a faithful Catholic, was using some wishful thinking in this passage, but certainly Protestantism has also failed to live up to this ideal … which is the main point of “Repelling the Martian Invasion” (the TAC website recognizes the crux of my article in its tagline: “Jeff Taylor on where the religious Right goes wrong”).

Good points, Mark, Octopus, and William. Law’s “A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life” (1728) was a classic for many generations. It influenced not only the Wesleys, but also Geo. Whitefield and Sam’l Johnson. “An Address to the Clergy,” which I quote, was written much later (1761). If “A Serious Call” has been mostly forgotten, “An Address” was never known. Yet it is a superb book. Law had long since moved away from his early formal, legalistic approach to Christianity, but he retained his power of logic and writing. It is a good book for all Christians, clergy or not.

I remember reading his Serious Call almost thirty years ago in a course on Anglican Divinity at Yale Div School. I was the only one in class who thought well of the book and wondered if the strong contempt for Law registered by my classmates and our instructor reflected poorly on their judgment or my own.

I don’t wonder anymore.

Thanks for a timely message, Professor Taylor, one reminding us that “glad tidings of peace and salvation” emerge from “divine love”, not the business end of a gun.

Hmm, couldn’t we just apply this to Red China as well?

How about the Kingdom of Saud?

“In the war against radical islamists, who have for the last 1400 years or so maintained the same game plan, it seems that killing them is the only option available while they have the means to move about the earth. NO ONE has made any advances in the realm of diplomacy with these people.”

St. Francsis of Assisi did in 1219. It was called making witness.

To briefly digress from the subject of this thread, I have often of late cited the same parable as support for what I consider to be the sine qua non precondition for health care reform in the US: Separation of Health and State. I.e. the Samaritan was hands-on, at the outset, with his delivery of health care. Later on, he delegated that care to another and prepaid him out-of-pocket.

Although the Lord likely did not intend the parable to be a brief against ObamaCare, it works that way for me!

Iraq was no doubt in need of regime change, but it was a disaster for us to provide it, particularly when and how we did, and under the delusions which guided our president at the time. We simply created a vacuum, into which moved El Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Hussein never let those guys get a foothold, if only because he didn’t own them. Osama called Hussein an apostate.

Although I grew up on World War II movies, in an era when American gloried in the defeat of Hitler, it is worth noting that we only got into the war after Japan attacked us, and Hitler declared war on us. We didn’t take the initiative merely because Hitler was evil. Between the Taft isolationists and the pacifists, America was dead set against going to war, for what may have been the best reasons in our history.

There is nothing about Islam which has been consistent for 1400 years, except possibly belief in one God (al-Lah in Arabic, The God). Like Christianity, everything else has been up for grabs, interpreted, re-interpreted, and fought over WITHIN the faith for 1400 years. “Radical” Islamists didn’t exist until 50 years ago. Feudal Islamists did, but not radical Islamists. In any case, a Christian approach to war does not begin with “Onward Christian Soldiers,” it begins with, what did Jesus say, and, since we are NOT Jesus, what can we do?

War in the name of the Christian God is indeed ludicrous. However, I’m not so sure that God NEVER cares about who wins. God may have cared very much who won World War II, but God didn’t get us into that mess, and he didn’t get us out of it, at least not unscathed. Likewise, Abraham Lincoln pointed out that God has his own motives — but I suspect God did care, not only who won the Civil War, but when, and in what condition. If the Union had been restored too quickly, then slavery would not have been abolished.

I don’t know that there’s ever been a huge cheering section amongst the Christian community for any war. That is, to support an action does not imply that a Christian has lost his way or is in conflict with the teachings of Christ. I also don’t buy into the various arguments that “most” of the wars of the last century were unjust or acts of imperialism or our gov’t forcing its will on others. (Such a debate would require specifics that would be a digression from the point of this thread.)

It is always preferrable to avoid violence. It is always preferrable to avoid inflicting serious harm if violence must be unleashed. It is always preferrable to cripple rather than to kill. Note the pattern here. And all of this comes after the total exhaustion of every viable non-violent alternative.

I also do not believe that because someone like the Pope proclaims a given war as unjust then it must be true. He may lead Christ’s church, but he isn’t Christ.

Iraq was in need of regime change. This is beyond dispute, as Hussein and his boys terrorized and brutalized their own people simply because they could and they enjoyed it. I liken this situation to the parable of the Good Samaritan. Hussein & Co were the bandits who mugged the victim, which was fellow Iraqis and neighboring states. The USA was the Samaritan, except we came upon the crime in progress and did the right thing. Personally, I think Hussein gave plenty of reasons for our actions and would have continued supplying more reasons had we continued with the fictitious “containment” some think was working. It would have been unChristian to allow him to remain in power working his personal “magic” upon his long suffering people.

The main problem with pacifist/just war people is their difficulty understanding Christian teaching. How are we judged but by what is in our hearts? If this is true, and I believe Scripture teaches this, then our intention determines what is just in our actions. Therefor, to lie to a criminal to protect lives or property is not sinful. To fight to protect either from such people isn’t, either. The difference between killing and murder is intent and to use words like murder in every discussion of war is equally a strawman, a lie and a distortion of Christian teaching. (I’m responding to all comments and quotes supporting the Jeff’s postion—just a quick clarification if one is needed.)

Thus, war is not in and of itself inherently evil or sinful. It was when Hitler moved on Poland and the free world, for example. It wasn’t when we joined the fight against him. Bad things happen in war to innocent bystanders and even this does not determine the morality of war, or rather, the morality of every nation involved. In the war against radical islamists, who have for the last 1400 years or so maintained the same game plan, it seems that killing them is the only option available while they have the means to move about the earth. NO ONE has made any advances in the realm of diplomacy with these people. This is a simple fact. “Turn the other cheek”, “Laying down one’s life for another” and other such misunderstood verses do not play here. If I lay down my life to save another, I’m in compliance with the spirit of that verse. If I lay down my life feeling certain that the other will be killed anyway, then it’s just suicide and meaningless, especially if I had the means to prevent both my death and the other’s. Sometimes that means killing the offender to save the two lives. This is NOT unChristian. It’s merely unfortunate. The offender had the choice of turning from his path or risking death. The same is true of war and those who start them. The defenders are allowed to defend. Nations are not under the encouragement to turn the other cheek and let its people die.

It’s all about intention, and in every instance there is an appropriate response. Putting aside the fact that as imperfect beings we may not be perfect in that response, we can however make determinations regarding support for military responses and still be Christ followers in doing so. It is naive to believe that the military is not a force for peace, that they can never be considered peacemakers or peacekeepers. Too often, history has shown, war is what brought about peace.