The First Things blog has come alive over the last day or so with posts from several contributors beyond the usual entries from Richard John Neuhas and Jody Bottum. Currently there’s a lively debate about the current war(s) going on with Ross Douthat taking what I would call a sober just war perspective, Frederica Mathewes-Green offering the pacifist position, and Bottum and Robert T. Miller taking a more hawkish line.

I like this, from Ms. Mathewes-Green:

Since my side of the street is virtually deserted, and there’s very little danger that President Bush is going to slap his forehead and say “She’s right!”, I keep trying to hold up these clues and reminders from the scriptural and early Christian witness on these issues. I think it’s not just a matter of shrewdly calculating whether you have the strength to win the fight (as the Jews and martyrs did not), but that war is inherently hellish, bad for the heart and spirit, even when the cause is considered noble.

One way that war is hell, and something that may be a clue to some mysterious spiritual truth, is that soldiers who kill are much more traumatized by that than by any injuries they sustain. God has put something in us that revolts at killing, even in a cause we believe is just.