Lesson 5: Repentance and Just War
The fundamental ethical principle is “Do not kill.” It addresses the fundamental human problem: the disagreement between two individuals. All morality is the conversation that follows.
Just War Theory is one part of that conversation. Some participants insist that “do not kill” says it all. They declare themselves pacifists and refuse to engage in warfare of any kind. Many cite Jesus accepting death rather than defending himself and teaching that those who live by the sword die by the sword. Christians have taken that position and refused to shed blood for 300 years.
When we were given a voice in the larger society, some theologians drew up a Just War Theory that tried to control the community’s use of violence. Throughout history, the development of more deadly weapons forced us to repeatedly rethink the theory.
The Trump administration asks us to reconsider every last part in light of modern technology’s power. In fact, their rhetoric disregards even the spirit of the theory.
The classic theory has two parts. The first is Just Cause: that is self-defense. That involves war being a last resort launched by a legitimate authority after all negotiations fail. Our present leaders argue that this no longer works with the speed of modern weapon systems. One person must decide when a first strike is necessary to save our people.
However, they go on to completely dismiss the theory’s intention when they rename the department from defense to war, use negotiations to conceal their true intentions, and threaten to deploy the military to control other nations and even expand our borders.
The second part has to do with Right Conduct, which features avoiding the killing of civilians and not using inappropriate weapons or excessive force. The administration has adopted a modern strategy that strikes terror in the enemy by using overwhelming violence to destroy the infrastructure and inevitably slaughter civilians.
The moral depravity is evident when the president describes the Iran war as an excursion, and society pays more attention to the price of oil than to the killing of thousands of human beings.
Modern technology demands rethinking Just War. Our current administration seems to think that means abandoning it. They constantly declare ‘We are more powerful than you are and if you do not do what we want, we’ll kill you.” That sounds like genocide which is a denial of humanity’s most fundamental ethical principle.
Martin Luther King believed the rethinking affirmed Jesus’ wisdom. We must learn to love our neighbors so we can live nonviolently or else. Christians do well to start there.
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powerful lesson needs to be broadcast and discussed – extremely urgent and apropos for our time. From outside (Aust) the US seems to be at economic war with itself and military war with the rest of the world.
Pr Fritz thanks for continuing to posit these systems critique on (y)our behalf. I fully support you here as i am sure many of your readers do also.
ciao paul