Peace Talk — Winter 2005-06
The Quarterly Newsletter of Peace Action MaineJoe Fahey’s 1962 “Peace, War, and the Christian Conscience” introduced nearly a million Christopher pamphlet readers to the early Christian rejection of war and all violence as contrary to the teachings of Jesus and its replacement by “just war” norms and total war from the Crusades up to the present time.
Fahey, a founder with Dorothy Day and others of Pax Christi USA, has taught Peace Studies at Manhattan College. War and the Christian Conscience: Where Do You Stand? (Orbis, 2005,$15) reflects just how thoroughly he has come to understand the interface of conscience and war in the Christian era—how many come to glorify war or reject it, muddle along or blindly follow the leader.
Seven distinct forces influence conscience, Fahey argues—culture, duty, egoism, gender, religion, science, and utilitarianism. Often a combination of various forces goes into forming a conscience. He examines how each shapes one’s attitude to war and then asks his readers to rank the forces in order of influence.
The bulk of War and the Christian Conscience traces the development of war and conscience through Christian history, from pacifism to just war to total war to what he calls world community.
Pacifism takes several forms—the absolute pacifism of the early church continued with St. Francis and modern conscientious objection to all war; principled pacifism which allows for noncombatant service; selective pacifism which objects to a particular war or the use of certain weapons.
The pacifist model sees human beings as naturally peaceful, and social justice as the foundation of peace. Any resistance must be nonviolent; we must love our enemies. Means must be peaceful, reconciliation our goal.
The just war section traces its development from Hebrew and Christian scriptures and Cicero through Ambrose to Augustine’s tranquilitas ordinis—“the calm that comes from order.” A just war must have a just cause, exhaust avenues of nonviolent resolution, be declared by legitimate authority, not do more harm than good. Once begun, war must be limited to combatants. When it is over, restitution is required. Initially, just war norms were meant to end, control, or limit war rather than excuse it.
Augustine himself went beyond the use of force to maintain order, Fahey notes, in legitimizing its use to correct heresy, opening the way to the Inquisition and the modern police state. Current reexamination of just war thinking has focused on Augustine’s rationalization of violence: the warrior must love the enemy he is killing or persecuting.
Medieval discomfort with justified wars is reflected in exclusions of many from warfare, eventually almost the entire population, limitation of war to certain periods of the year and days of the week, recognition of killing in war as a crime against God, requirement of penance for killing in war, and emergence of the Waldensians and later peace churches.
The just war model begins, Fahey concludes, with the argument that coercion is necessary in human affairs, balanced by every effort to contain and properly direct the violence employed.
Total war is based on the notion that humans are naturally aggressive and warlike. Fahey defines it as perpetual war, war to annihilation—the Crusaders’ “holy wars.” In modern times, it reappears in fascism’s embrace of perpetual warfare and includes glorification of war making; indiscriminate killing of civilians; use of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons; pre-emptive attack; absolute obedience; establishment of the national security state; and pursuit of global empire.
The carnage of World War II prompted a fourth model—pursuit and actualization of world community. The United Nations is its vehicle, and its foremost voice is John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris (1963), which begins with recognition that we are all members of one human family who can unite in a political order and, through education, learn to live nonviolently.
The final part of the book asks the reader, who has been provided summaries, questioned, and offered further sources to consult at the end of each section, to reflect upon the formation of his or her conscience in the course of reading the book and to identify which model or combination of models has shaped his or her conscience.
War & the Christian Conscience is an excellent little book for anyone thinking of joining the military and for everyone at all confused about the Iraq war or the myriad U.S. military actions of recent years or those being projected, which means the great majority of us. For that matter, anyone in our secular era curious about how conscience is formed will find Fahey’s book a fascinating journey into self-discovery.
William H. Slavick is the Coordinator of Pax Christi Maine.