What Constitutes a "Just War?"
What Constitutes a "Just Robbery?"
What Constitutes a "Just Rape?"
- David Rutledge: As a pacifist, how do you evaluate the just war tradition?
Stanley Hauerwas: I’m certainly willing always to join serious just war thinkers in trying to think through what the implications of being a just warrior should be. But if you take the war on Iraq: why is America able to even imagine going to war in Iraq? It’s because we can. We’ve got all this unbelievable military power, so we can envision it, because we have the capacity for it. Now, the question is: did you get the capacity to wage that kind of war on just war considerations? Is the United States’ foreign policy a just war foreign policy? Is the United States’ military preparedness based on just war considerations? No way! They’re based on presuppositions, that you’d better have as much
military might as you can, in a world of anarchy, because the one with the most weapons at the end, wins.
Now, if just war people were more serious about raising questions about the implications of what just war would commit them to – for example, the war on terrorism could not possibly be a just war. I don’t even think it’s a war, I mean that’s a metaphorical use of the word “war” that comes from Americans’ views of – you know, the “war on drugs”, the “war on crime” – I mean, it’s just crap. Because what they need to think about is: just war is always about a political end, that you need to declare, so your enemy will know how they can resign and surrender. And so if you’re about annihilating your enemy, as we were in World War II – that is, we fought it for unconditional surrender – you
can’t fight a just war for unconditional surrender, because you’re not trying to destroy your enemy, you’re only trying to stop your enemy from doing the wrong that you declared the war for. I mean, there can’t be a just war against terrorism, because you don’t even know who the enemy is, and you get to keep changing it, and the presumption that a just war should be in response to aggression: well, in what way is Iraq really threatening America? That hasn’t been shown at all. What Iraq threatens is American imperial hegemony in the world. How is that a criterion for just war?
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After Christ's death on the Cross, no war is just. No war that the United States has engaged in for the last 250 years has been justified:
Memorial Day 2008
Kevin Craig is the founder of a non-profit tax-exempt educational organization called "Vine & Fig Tree." The name is taken from the Old Testament prophet Micah, who told us of God's will that we "beat swords into plowshares" so that everyone could dwell safely under his vine and fig tree. You can read the complete prophecy and get a summary of all VFT websites here:
http://VFTonline.com
Kevin Craig was personally tutored by R.J. Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen. He passed the California Bar Exam, but was denied a license to practice law because America is now officially an atheistic nation, and Christians who are committed to following Christ's Sermon on the Mount have been held to be ineligible to become attorneys. This ridiculous-sounding claim is documented here:
http://i.am/not-a-lawyer
A deposition from that case, explaining how the author became a pacifist, is here:
http://KevinCraig.us/pacifist.htm
The verses quoted in that deposition constitute a "prima facie case" for pacifism. An anthropologist from Mars, here to study the human race, specializing in the teachings and influence of Jesus Christ, would see immediately that Christ and the Bible advocate pacifism. Christ did not defend Himself against attack, and we are to follow "in His steps" (1 Peter 2:18-24). "Thou shalt not kill" and "love your enemies" are clear commands. Elizabeth Flower, of the University of Pennsylvania, writing in The
Dictionary of the History of Ideas
, observes,
The perplexing issue is why such straightforward and unambiguous teaching came to be ignored, or at least taken as a "counsel of perfection" impossible of realization in this world. In any case, . . . Christians began to accommodate to the social realities of civil government, military service, taxation, etc.; and then to develop their own political power. Yet the literal directives of the Sermon [on the Mount] were time-resistant and Christian pacifism has not lacked for bold and uncompromising advocates in such early Church Fathers as Clement, Justin, and above all Origen, in sects such as the Quakers, Schwenkenfelders, and Doukhobors, and in such modern proponents as Leo Tolstoy, Jacques Maritain, and A.J. Muste. . . . Yet historical Christianity generally compromised its pacifist commitments.
"Just War Theory" is one such accommodation to "social realities." It is an attempt to escape the clear teaching of Christ and the Scripture.
We are currently creating a comprehensive examination of "Just War Theory," but until that resource is complete, please consider the following:
We oppose the "Just War Theory" on Calvinistic and Reconstructionist grounds, not from the perspective of "sects such as the Quakers, Schwenkenfelders, and Doukhobors."
Arguments about "Just War Theory" only scratch the surface of some of the bigger issues we face in the quest for peace. Much of the "Just War Theory" depends on an unBiblical interpretation of Romans 13. We have examined this doctrinal pantheon here:
http://Romans13.com
The errors found in most teaching about Romans 13 come from a misunderstanding of "the sword" and the function of what we call "capital punishment" in the Old Testament. We have examined these errors here:
http://GodandtheDeathPenalty.com
All these errors ultimately spring from a failure to take Biblical teachings on vengeance seriously.
For Further Reading: Swords into Plowshares