I was a nosey boy. Rummaging through things that weren’t mine one day, I discovered a brown bag filled with photos. Small black-and-whites. Men with guns. Men with jeeps. Men wearing combat boots, white tank tops, army fatigues, dog tags. One picture from the stack I can still remember vividly… Read More
Archive Tag: war
What Pacifism Taught Me About The Truth (And Myself)
It happened a few months after 9/11. A friend, assuming I would agree, complained that Christians in America were overwhelmingly in support of going to war with whoever was responsible. He was a Southern Baptist. He didn’t sew his own clothes out of hemp, live in a commune, grow a… Read More
Thinking Like A Christian & An American
There’s a tug-o-war between theology and pragmatism going on inside every Christian in every nation. American Christ followers are no different. Never have been. The American Revolutionary War was not a “just war” – not the way Aquinas or Augustine defined “just.” More importantly, it wouldn’t begin to meet the… Read More
Just War Part 14: Holy War Protest
Neither America’s nor Britain’s population protested on a large scale Allied bombing campaigns during World War II. Many historians say that a sort of holy war mentality had taken over, overriding any moral outrage the population would have ordinarily expressed. Americans and Brits are said to have “feared the consequence… Read More
Just War Part 12: Total War
Billy Mitchell General William “Billy” Mitchell, sometimes called the Father of The U.S. Air Force, flew against Germans over France in World War I. He returned home convinced that air power would make land and sea power obsolete in future wars. Fighting wars from the air, he also predicted, would… Read More
Just War Part 11: Giulio Douhet
There are no more prominent theologians left in our history of Just War thinking. From here on out the leaders of government and military will steer the Just War tradition to the present. Beginning with Giulio Douhet. Italian Brigadier General Douhet (1869-1930) presented his revisions to Just War doctrine in… Read More