The Relevance of Christian Just War Theory in Modern Foreign Policy

I recently opened my big stupid mouth and said that one of my Just War Theory professor's paper assignments did not sound like it would be fun, which made him get all creepily "oh, you want FUN do you?!?" about it. He then assigned us something that was still a weighty paper but was less formal than usual. The idea was to write something that could be printed as an OpEd column in a newspaper, defending the value of Christian Just War Theory in today's foreign policy, even to non-Christians. (I believe the prompt did give you the choice to say it had no value, but I happen to think that's incorrect.) Since the idea was to speak to the masses, I thought it might be worth actually taking to said masses. Feedback welcome!

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Today we find ourselves enmeshed in three wars: the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, and a war of opinion. Our public discourse is awash in vitriol but lacks a certain seriousness that would allow us to properly discuss the military wars before us, creating a third war of words. At the same time, our society is secularizing; religion has taken on the feeling of a hobby or pasttime, the Western zest for toleration leads us to place a wide berth around any assertions that one religion more than any other is superior, and misreadings of the American Constitution have fostered a wild paranoia that any religious influence upon government will send our government spiralling into oppressive theocracy. Our troubled relationship with religion has prompted us to abandon certain options available to us in referring to church-influenced theory, primarily those of Christian Just War Theory. Considered rightly, Christian Just War Theory can provide us with a moral language to use to discuss the justice of our military wars and a context in which we can consider them. Christian Just War Doctrine relies on a natural law accessible to all men, which renders worries about strictly religious government influence moot. Finally, our engagement with the Muslim world demands that we address matters of theological doctrine, whether we choose to or not. Though Christianity may not speak for the West as a whole, Christian theorists have made enough of an effort to make their arguments accessible to Christians and non-Christians alike that they provide an effective starting point for the consideration of justice in war.

It is particularly difficult to gauge the justice of a war from the center of it, and it may be impossible for every citizen of the United States to come to an agreement on the status of both the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars. Moreover, there are two aspects of war to appraise for justice – the decision to go to war, and the way we transact it once we are there. These complications do not exempt us from the justice of our wars, particularly if the United States wishes to continue its reputation as a benevolent force on the international stage. The necessity of these considerations demands that we develop a reasoned, methodical approach to apply, and this in turn requires us to subscribe to a more deeply rooted basis for our theories. Modern American politics operate on a somewhat superficial understanding of political urgency; even if these politicians do appeal to a less transient rationale than their emotions, they rarely go deeper than the American Constitution. Though that document is grounded in grand liberal tradition and forms the basis for American life, it is relatively young and restrains our politics to a certain depth. Christian Just War Theory encourages us to look beyond our particular political structures and rely on natural law for guidance.

There are two primary sources of Christian Just War Theory and both understand Just War to be a limiting force. Both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas understand that any political consideration of war must begin with the realities of man's fallen state and that because of this, man's “profound desire for justice” is difficult for him to realize. A just war must be proportionate and narrow, which can sate both the desire for revenge and the desire for justice. As we mentioned before, it is difficult to gauge actions in the thick of war. Considering the justice of a war will limit unjust acts in the heat of the moment, freeing the combatant from later regret associated with the unjust actions. In St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, he explores four essential questions of Just War and provides three necessities for going to war justly. Thomistic Just War requires that the ruler setting out to war have legitimate sovereignty, that there must be just cause, and that the intent of the combatants be rightful (Summa Theologica, Part II, Question 40, sect. 1). The requirements of both men cut a large swath through many of history's wars, so frequently fought over minor slights and mere property. Christian Just War limits the combatants to the pursuit of good and the destruction of evil, not temporal – and temporary – gains. Just War is not for the pursuit of simple victory but of the tranquilitas ordinis, a peace that would allow people to live as children of God.

With this guidance, we can get to war, but questions continue after the initial decision is made. Aquinas carefully analyzes the questions of clergy participation, the laying of ambushes and fighting on holy days to understand how to transact a just war. In the end, clergy may not participate because it is fundamentally opposed to their service to God. It is, however, acceptable to go to war on holy days, because a just war would be in the service of God and there is a precedent for the meting out of religious punishments on holy days. Perhaps most important however is the approval of ambushes in action but not in speech (Summa Theologica, Part II, Question 40, sect. 2-4). This distinction reveals the heart of Christian Just War Theory – ambushes in deed push the war for just cause forward, but ambushes in speech make the tranquilitas ordinis virtually impossible because the trust and honor upon which it depends cannot exist if the peace was forced through lies. We see here that justice must be considered at every step, not just on the path to war.

Though Augustine and Aquinas so refer to the Christian God in their theories, the bulk of the arguments are based on natural law teaching, and this basis allows Christian Just War Theory to reach well beyond Christianity. Natural law is accessible to all men. Americans understood that there was such a law and based their own government on this knowledge long ago at the country's founding. In this way, the relative youth of the American government and its foundation in natural law make Christian Just War Theory uniquely applicable to our foreign policy. In George Weigel's article Iraq: Then and Now, he explains that the Bush Administration referred often to Just War Theory in the much maligned 2002 National Security Strategy, though the aspect that the media clung to was that of preemption (Weigel, p.39-40). Discussed without a serious consideration of Christian Just War Theory, preemption seems a choice more suited to sandbox squabbles, but in context, we may understand the choice to strike first as a blow against injustice rightly understood.

Weigel also takes aim at the idea of the United Nations as an international authority on just war, successfully attacking the claims to sovereignty often raised by its advocates. One part of our fallen state so willingly embraced by Christian Just War Theorists is our mortality and our inescapable connection to the Earth. This means that our political life is necessarily influenced by our connection to and perceived ownership of our territory and property. Sovereignty originates in this physical politics and the United Nations relies on the gift of power from member nations for the mere illusion of sovereignty. Even the United Nations' Charter understands this reality. As Weigel points out, Article 51 leaves an “'inherent' right of self-defense” to the member states (Weigel, p.37), and if this right remains under the purview of individual nations, then the UN has no sovereign authority – it cedes the valuation of war and justice, ostensibly the most important part of statecraft, to individual nations. Without sovereignty, there can be no just war in the Christian tradition nor in natural law teaching. We must abandon the United Nations as anything more than a tangentially useful center for debate, and not allow it to guide our foreign policy.

Christian Just War Theory and its basis in natural law provides an excellent guide for determining the justice of our wars. “Christianity” has become a strangely loaded term in American political discourse, and people may shy away from something they believe requires them to sign on to theological doctrine. It is the natural law foundation to Just War Theory that makes it accessible to all men, not its Christian structure. The Theory demands that we take justice seriously and adopt a complete and operable vocabulary for the application of justice to war. None of this is to say that Christian theory must be stripped of its theological bent to be accepted by a large population. There are certain themes that are reflected across religions, and even atheists can agree that man is not perfect. This is what Augustine found so important to considerations of just war. He called it a fallen state, but that is his term for a universally understood term. A fallen state means temptation from earthly desires, and this is why we need to take such great care in the contemplation of war. Reinhold Neibuhr points ouf that “Even the most 'Christian' civilization and even the most pious church must be reminded that the true God can be known only were there is some awareness of a contradiction between divine and human purposes, even on the highest level of human aspirations (Neibuhr, The Irony of American History, p. 173).” He goes on to remind us that our enemies' unjust actions come from the same impulses that lead us astray to unjust wars both ius and ad bello. It is considering our actions seriously that can keep us from acting in defiance of natural law, and Christian Just War can help us pay these questions the attention they are due.

It is easy to understand how non-Christians would shy away from embracing Christian Just War Theory, but when we examine the teachings thereof, we see that Christian teachings on just wars are some of the only approaches that make a serious effort towards creating a widely applicable, grounded context for the study of war. Its dual justification through both theological and natural law doctrines increases its accessibility and encourages the student of politics to talk about and rightly consider war. Our impoverished political dialogue cries out for nourishment, for something deeper than punditry. Christian Just War Theory offers us this lacking seriousness, and gives us more to work with than the emotions of the moment. In a time of great unrest and a reinvigoration of theological struggles between the Muslim world and the West, Christian Just War Theory's measured approach only gains in value and appeal.

The Right to Not Bear Arms

There will be a chance to sign a Registry of Conscientious Objectors at Clark University this Friday. I believe this is a national registry, but I am having some trouble establishing that definitively, so for the time being let's just call it a registry and carry on from there. I think the event will be interesting and encourage people to attend even if they don't sign the registry. Peace is a tricky subject and whether or not you feel a worldwide peace is attainable, the topic demands discussion in order for us to shape our personal and national approach to foreign policy.

Conscientious objection is an equally difficult matter. According to the Department of Defense, conscientious objection is "a firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief," and is further broken into two classes - Class 1-O objectors, whose beliefs prohibit them from participating in war of any kind, and Class 1-A-O objectors, whose beliefs limit them to non-combatant roles in war. There is a question, however, of whether or not conscientious objection is morally and ethically coherent within its motivation and end result.

Of course, if Christian Just War Theory guided US military actions, conscientious objection would become a moot point; presumably the citizens supporting a military and government guided by these principles would be Christian themselves and thus willing to engage in combat under Just War principles. This is not the case in the United States, and we must adjust our thinking accordingly. We are uncomfortable with the use of religion as a justification for war. It seems that in abandoning this justification we are declaring religion an inadequate basis for combat and perhaps for political life all together. This seems clear enough, but we then allow conscientious objection on the idea that religious conviction supersedes the agreement one makes with his nation to serve in the military.

Is it fair to let religion inform our decisions concerning the state when we are meant to function as a secular society? This question concerns both the motivation for joining and the reasons for leaving the service. The refusal to rely purely on religious motivation for war and the reticence to even discuss publicly the idea of letting Christian Just War Tradition inform our discourse on military action would seem to cast off religious determination all together. If this is so, it seems a radical exception to allow religious objection to military service. Given the secular nature of today's military, I can't help but feel that a recruiter would not be wholly comfortable when confronted with someone who showed up to register for military service saying he or she was directed by God to join the US military. Should there not be similar discomfort when one relies on religion for an exemption?

There is also a question of veracity. The simplest way to handle objections to service developed after contracting with the military is in fact the current policy. We can all relate to certain moments which changed the direction of our lives, and the extremities of combat could certainly supply such moments. However, the conscientious objection policy specifically concerns itself with religious belief. Religion is often understood as an all encompassing subscription to a faith; of course people may come to or change their religion later in life, but that an immediate and complete transformation should occur in the midst of combat after having felt strongly enough about the cause to put one's life knowingly in harm's way seems like it would be an unusual reversal. Why religion above all? Why specify that it must be a religious revelation that can release one from a service contract? It seems that we are less ambivalent towards religion than our larger military policy and disregard for Christian Just War Theory may at first indicate.

Even more complicated are the Class 1-A-O objectors. Is it possible to join a military body and refuse to participate in the stated actions of the military? This class further fractures the religious/political distinctions and allows the objector to exempt himself from the principle reality of military service. Even if one serves as a medic, one would be healing soldiers so that they could go again into battle. In an administrative role, one still facilitates the business of war. If one's objection is to killing or war, then the efforts he exerts in his non-combat job still violate his principles. To simply serve his country, there are numerous options for civil service one could choose, but the Class 1-A-O objector remains in the military. Does this detract from the strength of the religious basis for objection? I think it must; rare is the religion that says direct killing is unforgivable but indirect killing is okay.

The matter of conscientious objection points to large scale confusion between we have different levels of commitment just as we have different kinds of love. There is a certain fear in our public discussion of religion, perhaps because religion relies on unprovable faith. We demand clear definitions of our actions, and sometimes it is not that simple. One feels loyalty to many things in his life and how we vet these loyalties cannot be rigidly defined. The US conscientious objector rules certainly make a game stab at establishing lines dividing religion and politics, but we see that these rules are rife with problems nonetheless.

Just War Theory vs. the Quaker Peace Testimony

I am taking a course on Just War Theory this semester, which I always find both fascinating and troublesome. I have been (idly) checking out what has been said within the Quaker faith in argument or accord with Thomas Aquinas & Co.'s development of the theme and trying to figure out what place I believe Just War Theory has in the Quaker theology. I found one piece that I enjoyed, where the author behind Quaker Oats Live took a stab at the same topic in the form Thomas Aquinas used in his Summa Theologicae. They articulated their ideas well and I hope they will not mind if I start from their framework.

First, some notes. For the wholly uninitiated, Quakers hold pacifism as one of the major tenets of their faith. This is one of relatively few universal Quaker beliefs, though the level of concern varies (i.e. active or passive pacifism, Quakers do serve in the military but only as medics, and do have the ability to claim conscientious objector status), as does the prioritization of pacifism within the other beliefs in the faith. Quakers do not have a formal Creed; while there is Quaker leadership and accepted canon, we lack the universal and formal documents from which to draw. Each Yearly Meeting (larger regional bodies; similar to a diocese) produces rulings on Faith and Practice, and this is beyond the larger discrepancy between silent, "unprogrammed" Meetings which are more common and the pastoral "programmed" Meetings (largely of the Midwest).

Finally, George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, did not exhort his Friends to leave the military or give up their arms, even as he added pacifism to the core values of the religion. Military and public reaction to the addition of the Peace Testimony forced some definition of the peace testimony.

On we go. I am going to put Objections and Replies that correspond together and move one section of text that was placed between the former and the latter at the end of the argument for a little more clarity.

Whether a Christian can follow the Bible and be a just war proponent:

Objection 1. Many Christians say yes, we can and should be just war proponents because God desires justice, and as Christians we should always aid in bringing justice to the world.

Reply 1. God desires for justice to happen, but not through our violent actions. We are asked to bring about justice through bringing good news, sight to the blind, visiting people when sick and in prison, and proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor (Isaiah 61:1-2, Luke 4:18-19). Romans 12:17-21 says vengeance belongs to God alone, and to combat evil by staying firmly in the good.

The reply here presumes that the attacker is seeking vengeance or to punish their opponent. In that case, war is certainly unjust; vengeance does belong to God alone, to be meted out on either a temporal or ethereal basis. There is nothing in the Bible to indicate that we as Christians are meant to stand idly by in the face of injustice. Moreover, the examples of Good Christianship that the author provides are all positive - bringing good news, people, visiting those in need, proclaiming the year. In all of these cases, the Good Christian is to take his acts out into the world, not stand idly by nor simply consider the glory of the Lord and trust Him to assume care of all injustice in the world. We must further consider human autonomy if this is to be our view. If all moral issues and actions were the exclusive purview of God and the heavenly realm, then there would be no reason for the earthly plane, nor for the simple function of reason. We are not God's videotape - we are made to act, and this means that we MUST act. The concept of sin bears this out. Sin is our burden given to God, and it seems unlikely that God would wish this immense burden if He could avoid it through his own action. If we have a responsibility to atone for our sins, we must have an inverse responsibility to act in a way that redeems us and rights the sins of the world when we are afforded the opportunity.

There is an additional challenge to Friends here in our tradition of bearing witness. One could conceivably take this tradition to mean that we should in fact stand back and only watch the injustice before us to relay its tale to those who do not know. But as we saw above, there is no Biblical basis for this, and more importantly, Quakerism's activist vein runs deep. From the religion's very foundation Quakers actively sought to bring the world to their just view of the spiritual relationship. Neither the Quaker founders nor the religion's adherents have ever felt that they could ignore injustice in the world (take the example of their role in shaping the American penal system), and so it seems somewhat in congruent for them to refuse to take this ultimate step in extreme cases.

Objection 2. There is the case of ancient Israel, where God commanded the Israelites to go to war, and they were God's chosen people. Now that Christians are God's chosen people we should fight the wars God asks us to, namely, those that bring about God's desire for justice in the world.

Reply 2. Ancient Israel (whether taken at face value as historically accurate, or taken as a semi-myth meant to teach various truths) was a theocracy, ordered by God. The Israelites were a people chosen by God to enact God's justice in the world. No nation has been given that right today, except perhaps the nation of Israel if it was attempting to live as a theocracy, which it is not. Christians are God's chosen people, but Christ said, "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' but I say to you, 'Do not resist an evildoer.'" He said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5). This cannot happen by going to war.

I agree that we cannot take the example of Biblical Israel as our model for Just War Theory. As the author points out, Israel has abandoned its theocratic roots and thus its claim to a mandate from God. Even if Israel still functioned as a theocracy today and retained this mandate, it would still not give then free rein to engage in war. Obviously, a nation in the service of God would be responsible to act justly, and such a nation could not be responsible for carrying out just wars on behalf of all wronged nations because those nations would have to subscribe to Christian theology for God to require his nation to defend them.

I do find the choice of quote problematic. There are many kinds of "evildoers," and not all of them are unjust. I feel that there is an argument to be made that Christ is specifically referring to secular law when he uses the phraseology found in Hammurabi's Code, leaving some of the care of evildoers to the legal system, and that "not resisting an evildoer" is quite unclear. We could interpret this as either not offering resistance to said evildoer and allowing them to go on with their unjust acts with the understanding that God will exact retributive justice on our behalf. We could also read it in the sense of "I just couldn't resist," which produces an opposite understanding of the phrase. If we choose the latter, Jesus is instead telling us that we must zealously pursue evildoers. Given the first section of the quote, it seems likely that this second reading is correct, meaning that Christ is instead saying "the legal system covers certain criteria, but you must also pursue the unjust."

The relevance of the last quote from Matthew depends on your acceptance of Augustinian and Thomastic Just War; if you believe these teachings, you can in fact see war as an expression of love in the form of salvation from one's immensely evil deeds. If you do not subscribe to these teachings, you are more likely to be persuaded by this quote.

Objection 3. In Roman 13 Paul says Christians should follow our government, and sometimes our government demands us to go to war.

Reply 3. Paul, who wrote Romans 13, is known to have disobeyed his government when it went against his understanding of what God was asking him to do. He was thrown in prison several times for preaching the good news. He submitted to the civil magistrate in that he went to prison without using violence to escape, but he did not follow the magistrate in doing things against God's command. Civil disobedience is, therefore, an important part of being a Christian, and this undoubtedly reaches to the problem of war. The first 300 years of Christians understood Jesus & Paul this way and lived as pacifists.

Civil disobedience alone cannot negate the just war argument. Frankly, I feel it's a somewhat weak argument for or against war, but it's worth discussing. Politics shape our lives, and the decisions that we make in shaping that government and the law that we create must result in a form and practice of government that we are comfortable with as a manifestation of our society. Civil disobedience is a noble tool for restoring this balance when the government strays; it is violation of law for the sake of a larger goal as pertains to the government.

We must understand civil disobedience properly here, as relevant to domestic politics exclusively. In order to disobey civil laws, one must be a citizen of the political community to which they belong. Citizenship is an agreement to abide by the laws of a nation (amongst other things), and if one is not a citizen of a nation then they have not agreed either tacitly or explicitly to abide by the laws of that nation. Therefore, disobeying laws of a foreign nation is morally neutral, though of course it is common courtesy to abide by them when in their jurisdiction. War is by its very nature a matter of foreign policy, though it must be rooted in domestic policy. This renders the matter of civil disobedience mostly irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Of course, a political community is the sum of its political inhabitants and thus civil dissidents play a role in the discussion concerning whether or not to go to war in the first place, but ultimately will have little effect on the actual engagement once war has begun.

This also calls back to the evildoers of the previous section. There a different degrees of evil, and if a war is truly just it will not be over frivolities. True justice is beyond personal or cultural perception and speaks to the heart of every man. If war is taken up in defense of this universal principle, it is unlikely to engender much dissent in the first place, and more importantly, such dissent would be unjust in and of itself because it would in fact be supporting the original injustice.

Of course, Quakers do serve in the military even though they have the right to claim Conscientious Objector Status in the US Armed Forces. They serve only as medical personnel, dedicating themselves to healing the wounded instead of inflicting wounds. This seems a worthy compromise in the event that a Christian feels obligated to the cause of a just war but is unwilling to inflict harm on a fellow human being. Most Quakers will tell you that they are pacifist because we are all God's creation and it is wrong to destroy any of said creation. This conflicts with the previous idea that dissent against a just war would in fact go against God's highest principles of justice and come around to being unjust itself. It is worth considering whether serving as a medic is enough for a participant in a just war.

Objection 4. There will always be “wars & rumors of wars,” so we must have a way of choosing which wars to be involved in.

Reply 4. There will always be “wars & rumors of wars,” but this does not mean Christians must be involved in fighting them. This is like saying, “There will always be people who cheat on the spouses, so I have to decide what is the most justifiable way to cheat on my spouse.” We are instructed to overcome evil by staying firmly grounded in the good (Romans 12:21). If we become evil ourselves, we have been defeated as Christians.

We can discount "rumors of wars" immediately, as our commentator suggests. Rumors of war remain in the realm of diplomacy and passivity because as mere threats they cannot be unjust. War that comes to our doorstep, however, must be vetted for justice and approached accordingly. If we are people of God, we must not allow ourselves and the gift of God's presence to be unjustly attacked, and if we see injustice we must come against it. Preemption is not justifiable, but certainly wars which are brought to us must be taken on to defend justice, and we as the custodians of the world must be willing to stand in the defense of justice .

On the contrary, John Howard Yoder (pacifist) & Reinhold Niebuhr (Christian realist) say the Christian Scriptures clearly state that Jesus wants us to always be nonresistant toward evil people. Yoder says we should never be involved in war or the use of violent force, while R. Niebuhr says the Bible is not meant to be taken literally on these matters, because Jesus lived in a different time and place than we do, and so sometimes we will be called to war as the most realistic solution, whether it follows "just war" theory or not.

I cannot speak to Yoder's theories, but I contend that this is an incorrect reading of Niebuhr. Niebuhr is a tricky writer - his gorgeous writing makes full use of the English language's capacity for nuance - and his theories are not immediately clear. The reading taken here accounts for the Christian aspect of Niebuhr's writings, but not for the realism. Niebuhr wants us to take a fuller understanding of the meaning of sin (not unlike the evildoers we have discussed and their various grades of evil) and allow Christian teaching to inform our foreign policy, not dictate it at all times. Niebuhr demands that we pursue justice as we are inspired by Christian teachings, and thus would be more likely to be a proponent of just war. Niebuhr would not sign off on a war for the sake of simple expediency with no regard for the justice of the act.

I reply that it is not possible to follow the Bible and be a just war proponent. The just war theory is not in the Bible and is not based on the Bible--Jesus didn't say, "Turn the other cheek, unless you're being treated unjustly, in which case you can hit back, but only with the amount of force you were hit with..." Pacifism is based on the Christian Scriptures, and if we believe God asks us to follow the Christian Scriptures we should be pacifists.

Many of these arguments lose their value when one considers the emphasis on personal responsibility inherent in the Quaker religion. Of course, pacifism is the preferred course - even the atheist will stand by this - but if one wishes to preserve their life and continue their life as an example of God's greatness, eventually the time will come to fight. If the fight is properly considered and taken on ONLY in the pursuit of justice and mercy, then neither Quakers nor Christians at large have true cause to deny it. The degree of their involvement may change, but a good Christian should indeed be willing to stand in the light of God and fight to preserve justice in the world.