Between Pacifism And Jihad: Just War And Christian Tradition

by Charles, J. Daryl

• ISBN13: 9780830827725
• ISBN10: 0830827722
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-05-27
• Publisher: INGRAM

Summary

Pacifism. Jihad. Militarism. Are these our only alternatives for dealing with global injustice today? J. Daryl Charles leads us to reconsider a Christian view of the use of force to maintain or reestablish justice. He shows how love for a neighbor can warrant the just use of force. Reviewing and updating the widely recognized but not necessarily well-understood just-war teaching of the church through the ages, Charles shows how it captures many of the concerns of the pacifist position while deliberately avoiding, on the other side, the excesses of jihad and militarism. Aware of our contemporary global situation, Charles addresses the unique challenges of dealing with international terrorism.

Author Biography

J. Daryl Charles is associate professor of religion and ethics at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.

Table of Contents

Introduction	9	(22)
Wrestling with a Perennial Issue	9	(3)
Contemporary Geopolitics	12	(5)
Presumption Against War or Against Injustice?	17	(4)
Making Moral Judgments	21	(3)
Religious Attitudes Toward War	24	(4)
Just-War Thinking and the Terrorist Threat	28	(3)
Just-War Thinking in Ancient and Medieval Thought	31	(18)
Pre-Christian Just-War Thinking	31	(3)
Early Christian Attitudes Toward War and Soldiering	34	(3)
Early Christian Development of Just-War Thinking: Ambrose and Augustine	37	(8)
The Medieval Development of Just-War Thinking in Thomas Aquinas	45	(4)
Just-War Thinking in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period	49	(18)
The Protestant Reformers on Church and State and War	49	(7)
Early Modern Thinking About International Law: Vitoria, Suarez and Grotius	56	(11)
Just-War Thinking in the Modern Period to the Present	67	(16)
Reinhold Niebuhr	67	(3)
John Courtney Murray	70	(2)
Paul Ramsey	72	(2)
William V. O'Brien	74	(2)
Michael Walzer	76	(1)
James Turner Johnson	77	(1)
Jean Bethke Elshtain	78	(3)
Roman Catholic Social Teaching	81	(2)
Christian Ethics and the Use of Force	83	(36)
The Personal and the Political (Romans 12---13)	84	(4)
Rethinking the ``Politics of Jesus''	88	(5)
Rethinking the Ethics of the New Testament	93	(5)
Rethinking Pacifism and the Nonviolent Imperative	98	(8)
Rethinking Neighbor love	106	(6)
The Morality of Preemptive Force	112	(7)
Just-War Theory: Its Character, Constitution and Context	119	(30)
Rethinking Justice	119	(2)
Just War's Debt to Natural-Law Thinking	121	(3)
The Spectrum of Force: Just War as a Mediating Position	124	(6)
The Moral Criteria of the Just-War Position	130	(7)
The Justice of Deterrence	137	(6)
Retribution or Revenge?	143	(6)
Just-War Theory and the Problem of Terrorism	149	(20)
The Nature of the Terrorist Threat	150	(5)
Terror in the Name of God	155	(4)
Just War's Response to Terrorism	159	(5)
Extending Just-War Thinking Beyond War and Terrorism: Postbello Considerations	164	(5)
The Church's Worldly Mission	169	(12)
Christ and Culture Revisited	169	(3)
Adjusting Our Eschatology and Ethics	172	(2)
Incarnational Witness and Civic Duty	174	(1)
The Moral Necessity of Politics: Rendering to Caesar What Is Caesar's	175	(4)
Taking Theology Seriously	179	(2)
Selected Bibliography	181	(13)
Subject Index	194	(3)
Scripture Index	197