My title will make more sense to those who have read some Stanley Hauerwas. ?His books were, as far as I can remember, my introduction to post-liberal theology, my encounters with John Howard Yoder and George Lindbeck and others coming years later. ?Hauerwas’s content is important, but people talk about him because of his style: he plays his Texas persona to the hilt, and his illustration-stories, his catch-phrases, and his pugnacious tone are all things that I love. ?His theology certainly commands thought, but he’s a writer who gets to those thoughts through the back door as his brawler’s drawl chats up the reader up front.
John Howard Yoder, whom I’ve come to enjoy even more than Hauerwas, is not that sort of writer, and that’s never been so evident as it was in my recent reading of When War Is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-War Thinking
And that’s just the point.
Yoder gives no room for people to dismiss him as an attention-seeking radical academic, preaching to some choir for the sake of having a good time at “real people’s” expense. ?His prose is spare, and his points are direct. ?His taxonomy of Christian viewpoints on war break down into four basic categories:
- Christian Pacifist Doctrine, which holds that war is evil and that Christians should therefore take no part in them.
- Christian Justified-War Doctrine, which holds that war is evil but that Christians may participate in very limited cases and in very limited manners.
- National Interest War Doctrine, which holds that war is morally neutral, good or bad relative only to the interests of a p0litical regime’s interests.
- Macho War Doctrine, which holds that war is morally good, shaping a generation of boys into men and teaching them responsibility.
Historically, Yoder argues, Christian Pacifism and Justified-War Doctrine (JWD) have the most in common among the four, agreeing that warfare is fundamentally evil and that Christians absolutely (on pains of excommunication) must not partake in warfare that involves indiscriminate destruction, disproportionate violence, torture, and a list of other ius in bello criteria. ?They diverge only in that JWD will allow more legitimacy to political authorities to engage in wars ad bellum.
Much of the book’s content has to do with the gradual erosion of JWD as the nation-state becomes the dominant political and spiritual force in Europe, supplanting the Church as the moral center for Europeans’ and Americans’ souls. ?In the book’s last section he points to selective conscientious objection as a sign that the older, Ciceronian/Augustinian traditions, which called for ethical reflection on particular engagements rather than “my country, right or wrong” patriotism, might once again become serious ethical alternatives to National Interest and Macho war doctrines.
I can strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants sober, serious thought on Christians’ involvement with warfare, with political entities, and with the real human beings who have served, serve, or might serve in national military organizations. ?There’s no cheerleading here, no rallying the faithful, but there is solid argument, solid historical reflection, and a genuine, reasonable call to think differently (honestly, he would say) about what we call and do not call a justified war.
