by Alexandra Alter
Almost two years have passed since the start of the Iraq war, but war, peace, and nation-building still dominated the debate among Christian ethicists at their annual meeting this January.
In a significant shift, many scholars endorsed taking a proactive approach to peacemaking rather than merely shunning war.
At their 2003 meeting, two months prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, most ethicists criticized the impending conflict either by arguing that a preemptive invasion did not meet standards of Christian "just war" theory or by advocating pacifism. At their 46th annual gathering last weekend in Miami, some members of the Society of Christian Ethics proposed what they say is a powerful third alternative: the application of "just peacemaking theory" as a method of defusing current conflicts and preventing future wars."When we debated the Iraq war in this society two years ago, it was based on just war theory," said Glen Stassen, a professor of Christian ethics at the evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary and author of JUST PEACEMAKING: TEN PRACTICES FOR ABOLISHING WAR. "What's happening in the society today is an increasing adoption of just peacemaking theory."
Arguing that conflicts can be best resolved (and ultimately avoided) through international treaties, economic development, and a greater push for human rights, Stassen and other scholars said pacifists had failed to offer the American public an alternative to the war in Iraq.
"Just saying no doesn't work; you've got to state clearly the alternative, which was, 'Let the inspections work'," Stassen told a group of scholars gathered to discuss the application of Christian ethics to international conflict resolution.
As an adjunct to just war theory, which claims violence is justifiable in the defense of innocent people and only when formally declared by a legitimate government that has exhausted all diplomatic alternatives, just peacemaking theory pushes for advance diplomatic engagement but allows for military action where appropriate.
The theory was first presented as an alternative to pacifism during a panel at the 1995 meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics, a nondenominational association of 950 scholars and theologians primarily from the United States, Canada, and Europe. A decade later, the idea has proven increasingly appealing to Christian thinkers struggling to develop appropriate responses to the threat of terrorism, genocide, and interreligious conflict. Since then, several books and some 40 articles on just peace theory have been published.
But not everyone agreed that just peacemaking theory can serve as a stand-in for pacifism.
Scott Davis, a professor of religion and ethics at the University of Richmond who presented a paper at the Miami meeting on comparative religious ethics and war, noted that just peacemaking, unlike pacifism, presupposes the necessity of war.
"Just peacemaking amounts to not much more than the exhortation to take seriously a better peace as the proper object of any just war," Davis wrote in an e-mail message.
Much of the debate over the role of Christian ethics in foreign policy centered on the Iraq war as scholars discussed the best way to achieve stability.
