A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Just War Theory

  • MLK and non-violence

    Given how Martin Luther King Jr. has become a kind of American plaster saint that politicians of all stripes routinely genuflect toward, it’s easy to forget how radical his message was: As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve Read more

  • The case for McCain

    CPA makes it. I’ve come around, somewhat to my own surprise, to the view that, of all the likely GOP nominees, McCain is the best option. Initially I thought Romney might be the least damaging of the crop since I reasoned that he would govern as a northeastern Rockefeller Republican (far from my favorite ideological Read more

  • Political self ID – a Christian humanist?

    This is an exercise in bloggy narcissism (or is that a redundancy?) so feel free to skip this post. The other day a friend asked me to describe my political outlook and I couldn’t come up with a very satisfying answer. Having persued the blog he suggested religious conservative, but to me that sounds a Read more

  • Pacifism and just war in The Mission

    Last night I re-watched The Mission, one of my all-time favorite movies (with screenplay written by Robert Bolt, who also wrote the screenplay of one of my other all-time faves, A Man For All Seasons). Like A Man for All Seasons, The Mission is about conscience and the way we respond to injustice. The Mission Read more

  • Debating the bomb

    Apparently some people never get tired of arguing about whether the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified. Happily, though, there is a link there to G.E.M. Anscombe’s “Mr Truman’s Degree” in its entriety, which I don’t think I’ve been able to find on the web before now. I mean, look: in terms of Read more

  • Just War theory and the “charism of discernment”

    This post from Catholic theologian William Cavanaugh revisits some of the arguments of pro-Iraq war Catholics, in particular papal biographer George Weigel (link via Eric). Weigel’s notion of a “charism of political responsibility/discernment” is muddled at best. Here’s the relevant passage from his “Moral Clarity in a Time of War”: If the just war tradition Read more

  • Christians and war revisited

    Doug Bandow has an article worth reading on Christians and the Iraq war. I think we see here one of the problems with Just War theory, a problem that many pacifists have pointed out, namely that it can be so flexible as to (rhetorically at least) justify virtually any war. However, Just War adherents obviously Read more

  • The triumph of anti-Constantinianism

    Over at Faith and Theology there’s a (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) poll on the “worst theological invention.” What’s interesting is not just that only one of the “inventions” is an actual heresy, but that “Christendom” and “just war theory” got enough nominations to make the poll. (Though, in fairness, biblical inerrancy and “the Rapture” are the current Read more

  • Augustine, just war, prevention, preemption, etc.

    Chris at Even the Devils Believe has a follow-up on the question of preemptive/preventive war & Just War Theory. He riffs on an article from the Journal of Religious Ethics that discusses Augustine’s view of these matters (not available online, alas). Read more

  • Preemption, prevention, and the Pope

    Michael Novak and Richard John Neuhaus have both offered some critical comments on Pope Benedict’s Easter address where Benedict reiterated (by implication, at least) some of his criticisms of the Iraq war. Novak has consistently remained a steadfast supporter of President Bush, so his comments aren’t particularly novel or surprising; he offers the now-cliched rebuttal Read more