The author discusses nonviolence. Perhaps realism and rational self-interest will prevail, and Moscow, Washington and Peking will manage to cling to détente. But that will not be peace. But we hardly need the kind of unjust détente that the powerful rulers in the Kremlin and the Pentagon would ensure if they could.
Practical pacifism deserves more serious consideration than it has received in Christian circles, especially since the major alternative to pacifism in Christian ethics, the just-war tradition, has significant deficiencies.
This article describes a daring idea both for Desmond Tutu and the BBC in which the victims or families of the victims were invited to confront on TV either the perpetrator or someone associated with the organization that had sanctioned, planned and accomplished the killing or injury of their loved ones during the Civil rights marches in the late 1960s.
This book is a rich, well-documented resource that is honest, trenchant, evocative and energizing on peace. The message offers the best of evangelical faith and Biblical scholarship in a way that is accessible and convincing.
The struggle against terrorism requires a human rights agenda that is global. Having caused a "regime change," the U.S. has an obligation to do far more than leave Iraq to itself.
The Bush administration is loaded with policymakers who have long maintained that the U.S. should use its overwhelming economic and military power to remake the world in the image of Western capitalist democracy. Since 9/11 our leaders are invoking that experience to reinforce our arrogance and our obliviousness to the consequences of our actions.
Dr. Serbin reviews two books about the Chilean government and its repressive system under Pinochet’s reign of terror -- far more brutal than anyone realized.
Bonhoeffer confronts us as someone who, in following Christ, made a personally costly decision that doing nothing to rid the world of Hitler was worse than doing what he did, however ambiguous the moral issues. In making that decision he could only "sin boldly" and cast himself on the grace of God.
The war criminal, the aggressor, the practitioner of genocide and the terrorist are not fading from the scene. In such a world, only the presence of effective military forces makes possible the maintenance of relative peace and security in international politics.
A discussion of the nuclear deterrent versus the pacifist position concerning nuclear arms. Surprising parallels are to be found in the writings of a Roman Catholic thinker like John Finnis and a theologian in the Anabaptist tradition like John Howard Yoder.
When defense workers ask how they can resolve the conflict between their religious principles and their participation in nuclear weapons projects, the churches need to tell them that there is no resolution. Their work is necessary but it is still immoral.
Nuclear war would not only result in hundreds of millions of casualties and in the material destruction of nations; it would also probably destroy the institutions of freedom and the moral, cultural and political conditions on which our values depend. There is a moral necessity of shifting the emphasis from the fear of being destroyed to awareness of the moral meaning of our being destroyers.
The euphemisms of war must be exposed for what they are -- words and phrases that fool us into accepting the unacceptable. Dehumanizing the “enemy” and euphemizing the weapons of war and war itself is a deadly combination that, unfortunately, has historically been successful in defending the indefensible.
With the war in Iraq it seems appropriate to take a hard look at historical and political realities about U.S. response to atrocities, raised by the two books the author reviews..
The myth of war, honor and patriotism boosts ratings. Real war does not.
We have entered the age of the "American Empire," but how can a nation that hates taxes become the world colonial empire we seem intent on becoming?
The people who hold the "just war" principle have much to do between wars, not only teaching the criteria but also nurturing the virtues commensurate with the tradition -- justice, temperance, patience, courage -- through preaching and teaching, liturgy and works of mercy.
As Christians committed to justice and the well-being of all people, we must condemn Sadam Hussein’s injustices and work toward a just government in Iraq. For political, legal, moral and interfaith reasons, it is imperative for Christians to condemn the prospect of such a war unequivocally.
Johnson lays out in chilling detail the ways in which imperial overstretch imperils the American republic and what's left of our democratic system as well as the American economy. He considers whether we can end our empire before it ends us.
What do human rights mean if millions of human beings can be reduced to mathematical coefficients on nuclear targets? The right to peace becomes more challenging as nuclear weapons become more immoral and more savage.
Jean Elshtain applies the animating ethos of mothering to national and international struggles.
Politically conservative Christians tend to find in the just war theory grounds for support of nearly all U.S. military actions. Politically liberal Christians tend to find in the theory grounds for opposition to nearly all U.S. military actions.
Just war discourse deceives sincere people by the very nature of its claim to base moral discernment upon the facts of the case and on universally accessible rational principles. It lets them think that their morality is somehow less provincial and more accessible to others than if it referred explicitly to the data of Christian faith, including the words and work of Jesus.
The just war tradition continues to provide helpful set of serious moral issues concerning war and peace The misuse and abuse of that tradition, however, are among the most terrible facts of political, and religious, history.
Review of a book by James Turner Johnson. Ours is a post-cold-war world of small-scale ethnic and religious conflict amid the ruins of collapsed empires. Analyses applied to the Vietnam war or the problems of nuclear deterrence are ill suited to illuminate our current problems.
Not only are there very few voices in the mainstream media expressing doubts about the wisdom of the current military operation, but a number of commentators have waxed apoplectic over any possibility that there may be those in the land who oppose the war effort.
The author believes that fighting a war in someone else’s back yard, so that we do not have to fight it in our own, is morally questionable.
Discerning true and false absolutes is a task that in the long haul should be accomplished by congregations.
Peace and reconciliation are examined from the perspective of an Indian theologian. The author concludes with ten points useful in guiding thinking and discussion about the topic.
The Century interviews an army sergeant who faces a military trial for refusing to return to Iraq for a second tour of duty. This war, as all wars, is designed to kill people, this soldier says, and he has decided he will have no part in it.
President Bush's supporters have talked endlessly about his global war on terrorism as a "clash of civilizations." But the civilization we are in the process of destroying in Iraq is part of our own heritage. Professor Johnson documents the looting and destruction of the Cradle of Civilization.
If the challenge for Muslims is to find ways to seek justice while honoring the distinctions between civilian and military targets, the challenge for Israel (and for the U.S. and its allies as they seek to limit the capacity of terrorists to inflict harm) is to honor the notion of proportionate means.
The mainstream of Christian ethics has contended that there can be a legitimate or ‘just" use of military force -- legitimacy being determined by a variety of factors, such as the presence of a "just cause," "right authority," "last resort," and the use of "means proportional to the end." Four different authors present their perspectives.
Religiously affiliated people are called to work together to face the issues of terrorism, violence and injustice.
Could the world’s religions offer resources for resolving international conflicts? The book's author says yes, but that there is a hidden barrier to any convergence of religion and diplomacy.
Could the world’s religions offer resources for resolving international conflicts? The book's author says yes, but that there is a hidden barrier to any convergence of religion and diplomacy.
The author reviews America's current National Security Strategy. While many of its premises appear rational, the document has serious deficiencies, which the author examines in detail, including extension of the justification for a preemptive war to include a preventive war.
We have ascribed an idolatrous power and ultimacy to weapons, which has deepened our dependence on them and increased our feelings of inevitable disaster. Our politicians and the technicians of violence have shown great dedication to perfecting the means for human extinction.
These four books discuss the concept that America has received a divinely approved mission to spread freedom, democracy and capitalist prosperity to the world and is increasingly preoccupied with the very activities John Quincy Adams feared -- searching out monsters (terrorists), entangling the nation in wars of interest and intrigue, and becoming an imperial "dictatress."
The author uses Kierkegaard's thought as a help in understanding three momentous events in 20th century history--the Holocaust, Stalin's purges, and the nuclear arms race. Kierkegaard's insights into the roots of violence grow out of his distinctive interpretation of the Christian doctrine of creation.
The true story of Jessica Lynch is hardly the heroic tale presented by the media.
The Christian cannot justify continuing to pay for Caesar’s wars, for unilateral action and nonviolent resistance are the ways of Christ.
An introduction to the thought of theologian John Howard Yoder, whose reading of Jesus's politics is that the church is called to practice nonviolence.
Professor Johnson holds that the United States faces the choice of becoming either an empire, or remaining a democracy. He believes that we are on the brink of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation starts down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play -- isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy.
If the present peace movement follows the pattern of past peace movements, this one will affect some policies and will move some people, but it will ultimately fail to avert war or to build a broad peace. Peace movements fail because they work for a “peace” too narrowly defined; they fail because they dwell on fear rather than hope.
Air National Guard Chaplain Clapper believes a soldier is forced to decide whom to love. If he wants to love a group of Iraqi women with purple fingers fresh from the voting booth, then we will shoot and kill the insurgent who is racing his bomb-laden car toward the polls.