May 01, 2009
By Pat McCaughan

The House of Bishops' theology committee has published a reflection on the concept of a "just war" at a time when warfare includes biological and nuclear weapons.

"Just War is ... about the ancient wrestling with what to do in a violent world where people do violent things. It's really about the Christian community trying to influence government to avoid war and, when war seems inevitable, to pursue it in as moral and just a way as possible," said Bishop Henry Parsley of Alabama, committee chair, in an April 28 telephone interview.

The document, titled "Some Observations on Just War" was filed as a committee report for the 76th General Convention, which will take place July 8-17 in Anaheim, California.

The report was a response to Resolution D068 from the 75th General Convention in 2006, which asked the committee to "re-examine Just War theory in the light of recent changes in warfare," said Parsley.

"It is the first time in recent memory that the theology committee has been asked to make a report to General Convention," said Parsley. "Normally, we'll make a report or draft a paper and give it to the House of Bishops" for reflection and discussion. In addition to bishops, the committee includes academic theologians. The report is not expected to be subject to legislative action at the convention.

Discussions of just war typically involve two criteria: when it is just to fight and how one fights justly, the report said. Among the committee's purposes, as set forth in the report, was to show that the criteria "are not abstract, self-interpreting rules. The way one understands the criteria is decisively shaped by the context within which one tries to appropriate them.

The current climate throughout the United States and the world, new types of warfare and weaponry as well as geo-political realities unimaginable to early Christian thinkers prompted the request for the report.

If Christians treat just war criteria as "a public policy check list" the result might be the co-opting of its original Christian context "to provide a sort of moral veneer to decisions that were largely reached on other grounds," the report stated.

"One good example of this in the present is the way that some recent leaders have used language about pre-emptive war. What we have seen with regard to recent U.S. policy is that language about pre-emptive war has been used to justify preventive war," which was either not contemplated, or expressly forbidden, according to the report.

Advancing technologies that enable combatants to inflict in a matter of minutes huge losses of human life, vast amounts of property destruction and even environmental catastrophe, all contribute to the call to rethink just war criteria.

The report identified "as a larger problem facing the church" the need for theological education and formation to prepare Christians to speak, listen and respond "from the riches of Christian tradition" to issues of violence, fear and justice.

"Rather than issue one more statement, it seems to us that the most urgent questions facing the General Convention, and indeed all Christians, are not whether or not just war thinking needs to be updated because of the changing shape of war," according to the report. "Instead we would urge the bishops to take the lead in offering churches a pedagogy for Christian citizenship."

A first step is repentance for failing to care for humanity as a whole and creation, the report concluded. "As ever, our repentance must take the form of a renewed and more serious intent to do better. We can do this by thinking in new and deeper ways about the relationship between our roles as citizens of this worldly kingdom and our more fundamental vocation as citizens of the kingdom of heaven."

Episcopal News Service
The Rev. Pat McCaughan is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for Provinces VII and VIII and the House of Bishops. She is based in Los Angeles.