May 5, 2003

WASHINGTON - Five ethicists of differing perspectives voiced grave concerns about the concept of pre-emptive war as foreign policy and spoke specifically on the conflict in Iraq.

"Wars rarely bring freedom, justice and peace," observed Gerald F. Powers, director of the Office of International Justice and Peace of the U.S. Catholics Bishops Conference. He cited Afghanistan as an example.

The Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy organized the May 1 symposium, "Ethical Issues Raised by Pre-emptive War." The ecumenical research center is supported by several denominations, including the United Methodist Church.

More than 80 people, including area pastors, seminary students and others, attended the daylong event at Wesley Theological Seminary, one of 13 theology schools affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

Center director Barbara Green said the program was to help participants understand their responsibilities as Christians. Drawing on a paper prepared by the Rev. Alan Geyer, founding director of the center and a United Methodist, she cited The National Security Strategy of the USA, published Sept. 20: "America will act against ... emerging threats before they are fully formed." That, she said was codified legitimacy for pre-emptive war; it means "we do not wait to be attacked."

"The United States and the global community have a moral responsibility to address threats," Powers said. But in trying to apply the tests of "just war" tradition, which can be traced back to Catholic theologians including St. Augustine in the fourth and fifth century and Thomas Aquinas in medieval times, Powers asked, "Why now?" This war was "not based on actual threat but on speculation as to what that threat might be in 2004, 2005 and beyond."

Iraq did not become a greater threat between September 2001 and March 2003, but the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made people in the United States feel more vulnerable, Powers said. Since then, the country has developed a policy of what he calls "muscular unilateralism."

The U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference said the war in Afghanistan fit the just-war criteria, but the conference has said it did not see Iraq "as a clear and present danger," he noted.

"Preventive force undermines international law," said Powers, who teaches a course in international law, ethics and conflict at George Washington University. What if India or Pakistan follows the United States' example - or Japan and Korea, in their longstanding conflict? he asked.

The political legitimacy of using preventive force might be justified, he commented, but such action is harder to justify by Christian moral standards.

"There is no single just-war theory," said James F. Childress, a professor of ethics and medial education at the University of Virginia. Rather, it is a living tradition with many roots, and it provides a framework for a moral discussion to justify and limit war. Making just-war theory credible for the 21st century is a major task for communities of moral discourse, he said.

When the war on terrorism was declared after Sept. 11, it "created psycho-social conditions for a real war," Childress said. In a war, military force is the first presumption rather than the last resort, he observed.

"In much of the world, we appear to be a rogue nation," he said. The way the Bush administration has asserted a right to a general first strike creates a precedent.

Beverly Miller agreed with Powers that the Bush administration's pre-emptive strike in Iraq did not meet the criteria for a just war and is not likely to be considered legal under international law. A Baptist laywoman, she teaches church history, theology, African-American religious history and human rights at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

"Christians need to study war less and focus on things that make for peace in the global community," she said. "Re-examination of America's role on the world stage is justified."

Bush's militarism is not solving the problems of the "two-thirds world," she asserted. It does not address poverty, malnutrition and disease.

"Militarism does not work toward our security but toward our collective insecurity," she stated.

Christians "must advocate for disarmament, peacemaking and peacekeeping." She urged thinking of America's power as a positive opportunity "to break the cycle of violence."

"Imagine the difference this nation could make in the world if we celebrated the invention of smart vaccines rather than smart bombs." Even small efforts at peacemaking would leave everyone better off than they are now, she said. "The struggle for peace demands the transformation of values." And, she insisted, "peacemaking is part of our call to discipleship."

Elizabeth Bounds, a Presbyterian laywoman who teaches Christian ethics at United Methodist-related Candler Theological Seminary of Emory University, said Christians need to find a sense of security in their own lives to serve as a foundation for taking this security out into the world.

"We need to understand why we feel so insecure," she said. The world is not a secure place, but the economic slump has added to the stress. She also pointed to reduced public participation, a diminution of public space and increased stratification in how people live. People need to understand their "perceived sense of powerlessness."

Bounds urged churches and seminaries to find new ways to develop leaders who can help people express their stories of pride and pain and who can address the broader world about peacemaking. She noted that human beings under stress put barriers around themselves for protection, and some of these barriers are a way of trying to make sense of the world because thinking of the human cost of war is quite painful.

She spoke of the pain U.S. soldiers undoubtedly feel at having had to shoot women and children who were used as shields by Iraqi forces, and said that kind of experience needs to be acknowledged in order for healing to occur.

The Rev. Max L. Stackhouse, a professor of Christian ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary and a clergyman in the United Church of Christ, acknowledged that it is not the job of the church even within the Beltway to instruct government. But he does hold the churches responsible to shape the ethos of the people so they hold their rulers accountable.

The church has the duty to be a prophetic voice and to call for peace, he said, but Christians also are called to be priests to one another, to speak courage and comfort.

"Ignoring the need to make a serious case (for the war in Iraq) is most troubling," Stackhouse said of the administration. That omission has left the world suspicious, he explained.

He cited polls in which few Christians reported hearing their clergy preach on the issue of the Iraq war. They need guidance in how to view the war and in how "to repair the inner fabric of our society," said the author of God and Globalization and many other books. He expressed a desire for renewed interest in the Protestant doctrine of work as "a calling."

"How do we minister through our worldly vocations?" he asked. People have careers now, but a career is an achievement of the self. Through a calling, he explained, one serves the community.

United Methodist News Service