BTh War

WAR & PEACE

Essay Assignment for BTh/CTh:

Should Christians ever be willing to take up arms in war?

Introductory Reading

Biblical

OT Perspectives by F. Derek Kidner (pp99-113). See also Grove Biblical booklet on War in the Old Testament
NT Perspectives by I. Howard Marshall (pp115-32)
Biblical-Theological Perspectives on War & Peace by George Carey (pp163-78)

Richard Hays, The Moral Visionof the New Testament, Chpt 14 "Violence in Defence of Justice" (pp317-46) covers biblical material in some detail from a pacifist perspective.
Stassen & Gushee, Kingdom Ethics, chp 7 ('Just War, Nonviolence and Just Peacemaking'), pp 149-74 (see also other chpts esp chpt 8).

Tradition

Gill, Textbook of Christian Ethics Section 3 gives readings from Augustine, Aquinas and Luther with comments. You should try to read all 3 writers but if you look at just one then choose Aquinas [pp 277-88]
Evangelical Quarterly April 1985 – War in a Church-Historical Perspective by David F. Wright (pp133-61)
Reichberg, Syse & Begby (eds), The Ethics of War: Classic and Contemporary Readings is an excellent large reader which presents a wide range of authors from across the centuries, including many Christian thinkers. You may wish to look at a selection of these.

Modern Just War Thinking

A selection from the following should orient you to the key issues:

Oliver O'Donovan – In Pursuit of a Christian View of War, Grove Booklet. A more recent and heavier discussion is in his Just War Revisited (especially the lengthy opening four-part chapter).
Andrew Goddard - When Is War Justified?, Grove Booklet or Pocket Guide to Ethical Issues, chpt 6 (pp 97-111)
J. Daryl Charles, Between Pacifism & Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition
Charles Reed – Just War?, chpt 3, pp 32-61.
Darrell Cole, Good Wars in First Things Oct 2001, pp27-31.
James Turner Johnson, Can force be used justly ?, The 2001 Kuyper Lecture
Thomas Kennedy, "Can War be Just ?" in Boulton et.al. From Christ to the World, pp436-42.
Paul Ramsey, War & Christian Conscience esp chs 2-4.

Modern Christian Pacifism

The two most significant writers here in recent years have been John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas.

Yoder, The Politics of Jesus [esp chpts 4 & 5]
Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom [very difficult to select out but esp pp 111-5, 121-51].
A brief and helpful statement by Hauerwas on pacifism is in Gill, Textbook of Christian Ethics, pp 339-45.

These two authors are discussed and critiqued in Richards Hays - The Moral Vision of the New Testament, pp 239-66.

Astley, Brown & Loades (eds), War and Peace: A Reader (Problems in Theology 3), pp 27-42 offers a selection of readings on peace and pacifism.

General

Pacifism and War ed by Oliver Barclay offers short clear statements of positions and responses from evangelical writers.
See especially Holmes on just war (pp 17-37) and Kreider and Swartley & Kreider on pacifism (pp 38-67).