The Offices of Christ and the Question of a "Pax Americana"

Max L. Stackhouse
Conference on Ethical Issues Raised by Pre-Emptive War
The Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy, Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, D.C., May 1, 2003

It has been as I expected. Gerald Powers, Elizabeth Bounds and Beverly Mitchell have already offered substantial comments in presentations to this forum on "Christians and War in the 21st Century," the careful background report of the Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy.1 Further, you will shortly hear from James Childress, one of the premier scholars of just war theory, whose views on preemption I tend to endorse. The previous speakers have not only laid out many of the critical issues about just and unjust wars, with specific reference to this presumed "new" doctrine of preemption, they have offered supplementary perspectives and some reservations about the report in general. Dr. Powers' observation that it makes a substantive difference whether the basic presumption of just war theory is peace or justice. It seems to me to be a weighty consideration, especially if, as I believe, God wants us to live in peace but not at the cost of justice. Thus, justice may trump peace at times, if it brings about a more just peace. Indeed, force is a necessary ingredient of politics when exercised by legitimate authority in a just cause and in a constrained manner against unjust violence, and those who deny this cannot be taken as serious voices in political debate. Dr. Bounds' stress on the fact that many people live with a deep sense of insecurity, and that this reinforces a profound anxiety that presses this nation toward more of a "national security state" than is necessary, seems compelling to me; and it is necessary to develop at the grass-roots level more refined methods of dealing with this compassionately. And Prof. Mitchell is surely correct that we must also challenge the arrogance of power that all too often neglects the direct needs of the powerless at home.

In view of these presentations, I have decided to offer certain theological background considerations that bring me to the issues from another angle of vision. It may enrich our discussion and perhaps increase the depth and width of our ecumenical vision in ways that could help pastors and churches see the connection of the report to the biblical and doctrinal focus on faith in Jesus Christ that they properly cultivate in most of their work. Moreover, my effort rests on the assumption that it is not the first job of churches to make political policy. That leads to theocracy, or turns the church into a party. Instead, the best forms of theology shape the moral and spiritual ethos and invite indirect forms influence. To be sure, the theologies of the mainline traditions are full of political implications, and they contain principles and purposes that are valid for everyone. But the path to the churches' influence is through forming the general ethos and the consciences of the laity, a path that will filter what we say and assures that it connects with what the people experience in their lives. Thus what we say should first of all seek to shape the convictions of the people and the fabric of civil society so that political authority will be held accountable to a morally and spiritually formed, informed and organized constituency. That will make power more responsible to the first principles and ultimate goods that God intends.

In this context and in accord with several major traditions of faith, it is one of the chief tasks of the churches to equip and commission the people of God to live their lives as agents of the various offices of Christ in the midst of the common life. We are not only to be a "priesthood of all believers," as Luther said, but to become a "prophethood of all believers" as the Puritans had it. And all, not only emperors and princes, are to exercise the "royal" office of Christ the King as citizen-magistrates, not only as subjects. Believers will assume the roles of Christ's ambassadors, governors and agents in all the sectors of the civil society. That shapes politics, and implies a social theory of politics rather than a political theory of society. The common life does not always work from the bottom up, but also not only from the top down. It essentially works from the center out; from conviction to behavior, from community of faith to society.
Many Ecumenical Christians since the Social Gospel and Liberation Movement periods in our history are already familiar with what the prophetic task implies. Every believer must be enabled to speak truth to power, reminding the rulers that they are under a law that they did not construct and dare not violate, demanding that they develop policies that empower but do not dominate the other institutions and spheres of society - families, schools, hospitals, businesses, centers of artistic creativity and religious communities, and calling upon them to establish and maintain a just peace, so far as it is possible in a sinful world. This prophetic awareness gives a new sense of authority to believers and ultimately to all citizens in pluralistic, representative, constitutional democracies.
But other offices are also anointed in the Old Testament and recognized in the New as key to understanding and serving the work of Christ. As recognized by several early Fathers of the church such as Eusebius, and major Reformers such as Calvin, the triplex offices of Christ mean that leaders in the church, and Christian laity whose vocations are to the service of God and humanity through their callings in "secular" positions. Each must be a priest to the other; each ministers to the neighbors' insecurities and anxieties, partakes of the sacraments in communion with Christ and others, manifests the willingness to go to the cross for others, and performs the fitting rites and rituals for the times and seasons of life. This ministry includes speaking a word of courage and comfort to those who are in command or under command, caring for their anxious families and honoring the chaplains who carry out their callings in dangerous situations.

The triplex offices also involve the recognition of what those in kingly positions know, that the organization, threat and sometime use of coercive force is ever necessary in society. What ancient cultures called "Mars," the personified ancient symbol of the disciplined use of force, and what the biblical tradition calls "the power of the sword," is a perennial factor in human history until the Kingdom finally comes.2 We may hope for and work toward that time when this "power" (and other "principalities and authorities") will be brought fully under the rule of the Lamb on the Throne, but it is not yet. It is this recognition that makes it very difficult for those in the mainstream of the Christian faith to be absolute pacifists or to proclaim a holy war. As believers, and as citizens in a representative constitutional democracy that has its roots in the covenantal tradition of the biblical heritage, all mature members of the church are called to number themselves among the magistrates, as the tradition has it, as well as among the prophets and priests to their neighbors. All are to accept part of the weight that those with high political responsibilities must bear. We must recognize that there will always be "wars and rumors of war." These are of proximate but not of ultimate importance, they have to be put in perspective, and real threats have to be met. In the face of this, we are not to be alarmed, they do not signal the end of history or negate the possibility of some gains in what is good by the use of power. A government that refuses to wield the sword when they should wield it under the constraint of moral law and to protect those institutions in society that contribute to the well-being of the neighbor near or far is not a viable or legitimate government. And since those governments that are a terror to evil are instituted by God, as the scriptures tell us, the church must also assume some portion of the burden of realistic analysis in a world marked by sin, deception and violence that is the duty of every ruler to constrain.

With these three offices of Christ in mind, we turn to some implications of the first of them, that of prophecy. To act prophetically in our environment, we will have to recall those first principles of ethics that stand behind moral policy, and indeed much of international law. Of great importance, as already extensively discussed in this forum, is the doctrine of just and unjust wars. I would like to point out, in addition to what has been said, that increasingly this doctrine has become linked to two other doctrines: the doctrine of human rights, until recently associated with the Protestant tradition, and the rebirth of the idea of civil society as it is definitive for understanding the common good, until recently associated with the Catholic tradition, and both now undergoing refinement especially as we must now recognize that, due to the globalization of civil society, both universalistic principles and multiple goods have to be recognized in a much expanded vision of what is common and what is good. Although it is seldom said in just this way, a survey of the pronouncements of the Ecumenical churches and councils of churches on a number of issues suggests that, whatever disagreements, sometimes sharp, divide people on policy issues, these overarching principles are now among the key teachings of most churches. Indeed, they correlate in large measure with other religious as well as some philosophical and political traditions. They do so not only because they are basically reasonable, but because the churches have been direct or indirect advocates of these ideas on a world scale for two millennia. Thus, even if people are not Christian, many recognize the validity of these ethical principles as advanced by Christians. Indeed, we properly do not trust Christians any more than others who deny or flaunt these two doctrines.

At the heart of these doctrines is the conviction that civil society, centered in ultimate, finally religious commitments, needs a political order willing and able to facilitate the rights of persons and protect the good of the diverse institutions of the society itself. The "public," in other words, is prior to the republic, and gives it legitimacy and shape. In our global context, a wider civil society is now under construction, a new expanded public that has escaped the control of any particular nation-state and its definitions of civil liberties and national well-being. A decisive indicator of a just civil society is that it will form a legitimate authority willing and able use coercive force in a morally constrained way to defend human rights and to extend the possibility of public participation in the kind of civil society that can operate in many and varied cultural contexts.3 In this regard, it could well be, as James T. Johnson, one of the leading scholars of the just war tradition, has argued that one feature of the doctrine of the just war in its long heritage was its claim that when and if the common good of society and the rights of people are at stake, pre-emptive or preventative action may be employed by legitimate authority.4 The residue of this older tradition may be found in the criteria that "more good than harm" must be shown to be likely, a criterion notoriously difficult to adjudicate before we see the consequences. (This raises the question as to whether our present situation is, on this point, like the answer that Chou En Lai gave to a question about whether the French Revolution was on the whole a good thing - "Too soon to say." he replied.)

These doctrines - just war, human rights, the common good of a differentiated and expansive civil society - are not dogmatic markers of the orthodoxy of the faith so much as they are justifiable implications of the faith as it bears on the ethical fabric of human life under present conditions. These are matters of "public theology" in the sense that they are theologically rooted, but can inform public affairs and forge a universalistic ethic that can be shared with and defended in dialogue with people of other faiths and philosophies. However, we must admit that these doctrines are, in themselves, ever incomplete. That is, they involve assumptions, limits and principles that serve as moral maps by which we can find our way through the thicket of claims about what is right and wrong, good and evil; but they do not, by themselves, offer an account of the empirical and socio-historical conditions that always must be considered as realistically as possible, then related to the first principles. These doctrines do not, unlike some dogmatic approaches, tell people what they should think or how they should act. They differ in this from pacifism, from holy war and from most cultural values - including "support our troops." Rather they remind us of what has to be taken into account at arriving at what are inevitably complex moral judgments on which people of conscience may vary.

These moral maps, grounded in a public theology, drive us to consider the evidence and point us toward the kind of evidence that is most ethically weighty. Thus, to speak of the doctrine of just war means that some use of coercive force is not just or justifiable, and that the case to engage in it must include a compelling account of the evidence of its necessity as well as of the principles. To speak of human rights means, as Michael Perry has argued, that "some things ought never to be done to anyone; and some things ought to be done for everyone."5 Thus, some sins of commission and some sins of omission must be overcome, sometimes by coercive means. And to know when that point is, we have to engage in a process of discernment as to how, when and where those things are going on and whether they can be effectively stopped by this or that particular means. And to speak of the good of a pluralistic, trans-national civil society in a complex world means that we have to discern what limits can be put on what major institutions do - states, armies, cultures and religions - even within their own boundaries. In a new age of interdependence that challenges the very notion of theocratic monoliths, cultural hegemony, militarist domination, the era of Westphalian national sovereignty is drawing to a conclusion in ways that even supporters of the United Nations may not yet have realized.

The principles of just war, human rights and the good of a global but diverse civil society are, to put this another way, properly abstract norms that also require attention to the actual contexts in which people live. They require us to seek in the messy factuality of historical existence, certain qualities, motives, and patterns of behavior that allow humanity, over time, to come to the judgment as to whether this or that regime or policy is, on the whole, just or unjust. All prophets, priests and kings now live as if in a perpetual trial, where it is always necessary to find both the spirit of the first principles behind the law (the duties of the judges) and to discern the pertinent facts of the case and the parties to it (the duty of the jury). But here appears a complicating factor: the data of history does not interpret itself. A wider view of what really counts and what counts less is needed. While God is the ultimate lawgiver and source of the first principles, and God is the only one who can know all the pertinent facts, everyone else now must be both proximate judge and jury. That is, we must come to an awareness of the spirit of the first principles of the moral law and decide which account of the realities of the situation is most valid. Such doctrines as these invite mainline Christianity to develop a more accurate and more faithful assessment of human nature and of the possibilities in social history than is available to the ideologies of the doves, the hawks, the anti-normative empiricists, the nationalists, and, indeed, the fundamentalists of all stripes. This demands that we not only draw on the theology of the offices of Christ, but we also develop a theology of humanity, a theology of history and a theological ethic for society to guide us in the process of discernment. This, we must candidly admit, the churches have not done. How, after all, does social history work in God providence?

I stress this, because the pacifists, who oppose all use of force, the militarists, who want to solve every problem with blazing guns, the empiricists, who deny all first principles and ultimate ends, the nationalists, who cannot see beyond our borders unless it is to our advantage, and the fundamentalists provide no basis on which to build a just peace or discern a just war. The fundamentalists - Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist or Christian - pose a special problem, for they are all willing to confront any and all of the others in this list with a pre-packaged conclusion to every question. And in the world context today, we have seen the resurgence of such voices. But they cannot be met with a non-theological point of view, as many in the "liberal" wings of various religions have tried. Every civilization rests on a foundation of ultimate convictions, and no civilization can endure without a guiding consciousness of these convictions as they give shape to the morality of the people and to just and viable institutions in civil society.

Besides, it is not true that contemporary pluralism make the situation entirely different from the past, and that we should thus hide our own claims about what is true for the whole world for the sake of tolerance or because of the separation of church and state. The world has always been highly pluralistic, probably more pluralistic in the past than in the present. Many gods have died. And the decisive principle of separation of church and state does not mean that religiously-grounded ethics must not influence the introduction of moral considerations into politics. Nor is it clear that the Christian fundamentalists have a theology able to meet the challenge of non-Christian faiths and cultures. It is only by a better theology that a worse theology can be exposed and corrected, and a deeper ethic established, although this will involve new levels of encounter beyond the "clash of civilizations." The question is whether some theologies have a serious place for pluralism and can still give guidance to the common life.

With these points in mind, it is fair to say that the churches could justly claim to be in the authentic prophetic tradition if they said that neither the case for the Iraq war as a just war, nor a compelling vision of where we should try to move history has been made by this administration. This is not to say that the case could not be made. In fact, when the Security Council passed Resolution 1441 unanimously, it seemed that the violation by Iraq of the first principles behind international law was clear to all, and that we could inspect and pressure a rogue nation to rejoin the community of nations. Moreover, the evidence of the violation of human rights by the Iraqi government reinforced the case for increased pressure, even if it is also true that violations occur elsewhere without intervention from the US or the UN, and some on the Security Council were party to the violations. Further, the vision remains vague of how it is possible to develop a viable democratic regime with an open civil society in a context where the power of anti-democratic traditions and highly theocratic religious orientations seem pronounced.
The evidence about the theories of society and of history that led to serious violations by and in Iraq are less well known and yet rather fateful. The Baathist ideology which governed Iraq is directly traceable to fascist ideas of the state, and the socialism to which the "Baathist Socialist Party" refers was attached not only to the "national socialism" of the Nazis, but became linked ideologically to the totalitarian regime of Stalin. The bastard combination of these "secular" ideologies imposed by Saddam and his junta were also functionally tied to nepotistic and tribalistic loyalties, and to romantic dreams of re-establishing the imperium of the Tigres-Euphrates past, and then opportunistically sanctified by appealing to Arabic resentments of the West and Islamist doctrines of the inevitable spread of theocratic Islam, by conquest if necessary. Every shred of ideological solidarity that could be used to legitimate a corrupt, tyrannical regime was employed. It is not only that Saddam was not a good person, it was that the views of society, of humanity and of God that brought him to initiate unjust wars against his own citizens and neighboring states, allowed him to violate basic human rights with impunity and prompted him to destroy the relative independence of the various spheres of civil society. This synthetic ideology was rooted in profoundly corrupt ideas of human nature, theology of history and conception of the common good. It is one of the failures of the churches who have the resources for a deeper public theology that we did not vigorously and overtly preach and teach against these savage falsehoods, for those of deep faith should know above all others that ideas have power and consequences, and we struggle not first against flesh and blood. We did not call evil "evil."

Having said this, it is nevertheless clear that, unlike the case that was made by Bush the Elder for the Gulf War in 1991 that formed the world's largest consensus about a just war since World War II, and the relative clarity of the Afghanistan action, few efforts to make the case that this is a just war or to clarify a vision of a new future have laid before the American public or before America's long-term allies in anything like compelling terms. Senator John McCain and Prime Minister Tony Blair, scholars Michael Walzer and Jean Bethke Elshtain, and journalists George Weigel and Thomas Friedman have, in various ways and with differing degrees of nuance, taken stabs at it; but no leading administration figure in this land has, to my knowledge, done so or attempted to clarify what the shape of things should be after victory, and what theories of civil society or historical development they have in mind. It is true that they speak of forming a democracy with a free market and religious freedom; but one does not simply impose these in a simple way. Such efforts failed in Somalia, Haiti and El Salvador; although they seem to have succeeded in Germany, Japan and S. Korea - although our troops are still there. It is not clear that the USA is committed, and that the world would approve, of an enduring presence of troops in Iraq (or Afghanistan). Thus, we have the widespread suspicion that the motives for the war are based on entirely other grounds - the desire for oil or neo-imperialist designs, and thus that the public has been lied to, as columnist Paul Krugman and others have claimed. Even if these are not the case, it is the ignoring of the effort to set forth the ethical and philosophical-historical case that is most troubling! What, exactly, are we up to?

It may be, of course, that for large portions of the population, the recognition of the fact that Saddam was an unjust ruler, tyrannically governing an unjust regime, is all that is needed, and that the residual anger at the bombing of the Twin Towers and Pentagon plus the fact of victory will be all that will be remembered over time in the American political landscape. If this is so, we must ask whether we, as ecumenically-oriented church leaders, should take part of the blame for the relatively low level of ethical discourse about these matters on ourselves and the sad state of teaching and preaching about public moral issues in recent years. Perhaps we must question whether the current postmodern presumptions that there are no ethical absolutes and no master narrative, and that moral perspective is utterly dependent on social location, made it less likely that anyone would think of having to give an account of their moral grounds for their actions: if one has the social location of power, why not use it for whatever one feels comfortable with? Who has the right to be judgmental about that? Moreover, it is possible that some theologies that have identified "prophetic" witness with the ideology of "liberation" from oppression as if that were enough, have now here been turned to unintended uses. We have liberated Iraq. Is freedom not enough? And to a generation that is doubtful about institutions governed by first principles or a sense of a rightly-ordered polity that can enhance a complex common good, why should we expect the general population to demand an account of a policy and what can form a viable and just polity in these terms? And even the tendency of many clergy today to reject the doctrine of just and unjust war and to voluntarily adopt sectarian stands on all such matters in the name of Jesus suggests that policy makers can ignore the witness of those who are, ordinarily, expected to bear the moral witness to society. Indeed, the poll conducted by the Pew Center, to which others have also referred, reports that only eighteen percent of American church-going population have heard their clergy preach on topics related to this war, and only eleven percent of these said they paid attention to clergy views on the matter, for they did not think the clergy knew what they were talking about.

Of course, it is possible that the clergy do not know what they were talking about, but it is also possible that if they do, they do not know how to preach and teach on such matters. It is probably a failure of the seminaries that many theologians, pastors, church leaders and seminarians who speak out most vocally against the evils of our time rarely integrate the prophetic word with the priestly care of those who have served in other wars, who are in the service now, or who have relatives, friends or neighbors in the mid-East, some of whom may have paid a price for their service. Moreover, seldom have they taught, by their theologies, sermons, education programs or Bible-study sessions, the church-members to think that the biblical and theological traditions had anything weighty to say on public and international issues except to oppose war, exploitation and poverty - much of which is said to be America's fault. The fact that people do not believe this is not only a matter of American chauvinism, of which there is no small amount; but also because many know enough about world history, exploitation by indigenous leaders, and centuries of poverty due to cultural beliefs and social practices that inhibit development, to know that all fault cannot be laid at the feet of the US or of colonialism. In fact, they believe, not without reason, that the vocation of America is to bring, with God's blessing, a kind of ordered freedom in politics, economics, religion, and individual opportunity to the world that little of it yet knows. If this is valid, we must give these ideas some ethical and spiritual amplitude; if they are mere chauvinism and a licence for our cultural neo-colonialism that are not universally valid, we must show how those who hold to them are mistaken.

A willingness to acknowledge a failure on the part of the seminaries and the ecumenical churches and pastors on this front, or to confess the partial culpability of the West for its own contributions to the suffering of others and its moral pretenses, however, does not cancel the need for a critique of the present US government for having failed to make a compelling case for its policies. It simply is not clear where we are leading the world as we employ our unmatched power. Here the church and its leaders have a special gift that it must prompt others also to exercise: the power of the word, the power of persuasive argumentation. We should both demand it and offer it to the people. A government without a respect for the power of the persuasive word, not only in popular appeal but also in moral substance, could the more easily become a government by naked force, eroding the principles of human rights, corroding the prospect of a vision of the greater common good and conducting war without making the full case for its justice. People - allies, international diplomats, serious citizens, morally-concerned intellectuals and the clergy who take their duties seriously as officers in Christ will no longer expect the government to give good reasons for what they do. That leads to a bleak future.

We can speculate as to why they have not. On the one hand, the population formed in faith by the church has not called upon the administration to make such a case, as I have just hinted; but it is also likely the case that the kind of Christianity held by those in power does not incline them to do so. I have no doubt about the fact that the president and many of his advisors earnestly pray that they can carry out the duties of their high offices in a way that protects the people for whom they are most responsible and advances the interests of the nation. They may well have internalized a sense of character and duty of office. On these points a valid ministry may well have been carried out by the traditions to which they have turned. They may have fostered personal discipline and empowered persons to face their individual temptations; they may also have given them courage and comfort in the face of hard decisions. But the personal pietism of these traditions, which the ecumenical churches too often ignore but which attracts these leaders and larger and larger numbers of laity, has no visible theology of the kingly role and no overt theology of social history that can shape the world as it plunges inevitably toward a global civilization.
It simply is not clear what the Anglo-American alliance will bring, or seek to bring, as a new Pax Americana. This is the reason that many see this war as merely another imperialism. It is, in my view, actually a deep contest as to whether it will be one or the other, a genuine Pax Americana or a new imperialism, and the outcome will depend on whether America can use its power to bring a period of history that points in some clear way toward the shalom, salem, Freide, paix and mir, the just peace with shared opportunities for participation and well-being to which the world aspires, or imposes another rule that will go the way of the Roman, Ottoman, Spanish and British empires.
The problem is that a merely personal piety, however virtuous, necessary and honorable, does not and cannot by itself give full guidance to a superpower willing and able to attempt to fix the problems of the world, especially if the understanding the duties of that superpower does not go beyond the enhancement of power and the protection of interests. The best evidence known to me is that the tough-minded wise men behind the throne have a dedication to a democratic order, a free market, and technological progress that they are bringing about by their political-economic strategy. But the philosophical, religious and ultimately theological bases for their actions are opaque, unless it is a sense of an inevitable "clash of civilizations" proposed by Huntington.6
It is, I think, one of the great faults of contemporary thought, that philosophical and political analysis is seen to be more universal than religious and theological thought, whereas in fact philosophies and political ideologies come and go much faster than religious and theological understandings and are more culturally bound. some religions and most theologies are in principle more universalistic, and without them neither liberals nor conservatives historically have developed a worldview that can guide us in interpreting the principles of just and unjust war in regard to the global issues of our time, the propriety and limits of human rights thinking, and the shape of a wider common good. Thus, we do not know how to be prophets, priests or kings.

But the outlines of such guiding worldviews, deeply rooted in our theological history, have been developed further in contemporary thought, although just below the radar of much theology and more public discussion. I refer to the two most important theologically-shaped views of how history should be sculptured in ways that can support human rights, cultivate a diverse civil society, and employ just war, where necessary, to preserve them and humanity until the Kingdom comes. They are the "hierarchical-subsidiarity" and a "federal-covenantal" views. These are the two great theories that, I believe, can give conceptual, ethical, and organizational coherence to the debates around globalization.7 Both are pluralistic, although the former tends toward a vertically layered order and the latter towards a horizontal multiversity; both recognize that there are many goods that have to be pursued to sustain life and meaning in history, both have a profound place for the dignity of persons and communities, and both are aware that they cannot resolve the tensions between the many goods entirely within history. Both know that a "transcendental" frame of reference is required and that a patient theory of historical expectation is demanded. The hierarchical-subsidiary view is primarily articulated in the Roman Catholic tradition, although it has parallels in both Indian and Confucian societal theories. The federal-covenantal view has been developed primarily in Jewish and Protestant circles, although it has parallels in some features of primal religions, as well as in parts of Buddhism and Islam.8

These views offer, I think, the most viable visions as to what the world's only superpower should be seeking to establish. It could give structure to a polity that would allow the prophetic, priestly, and kingly roles that people must play in civil society as they work out various policies. It is also not far from what the UN should seek as it reforms itself in several ways. On the whole I think the federal-covenantal model could best give coherence also to the new "regencies" of the world - the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, the WHO, and possibly NATO, each one of which will have its internal hierarchical and subsidiary patterns of authority, but all of which would operate within a federal-covenantal system. If the United States seeks to move the world in such a direction, what now appears to be a new imperialism could become a Pax Americana, a temporary anticipation of a shared, more universal and simultaneously more pluralistic and principled Pax Humana. Today, no genuine Pax can be only by or for Americana, and American efforts toward peace can only represent peace if it bears those just principles, purposes, and polities that allow the peoples of the world to participate in a global civil society that has a place for them to flourish. Such a polity would set the contours for the more just use of force, and provide both the bases and vision for a more just peace, one that presently passes understanding.

What I offer here is only a sketch, but (I hope) a helpful contribution to the theological background issues that I think could and should frame the discussion that is in the statement on "Christians and War in the 21st Century." It represents the kind of thinking that, in my view, is critical for how the church may speak on fateful public issues without usurping the role of politicians and soldiers. It is intended to suggest the ways in which a public theology can also contribute to a vision for the future, after a war that is only ambiguously just.

Notes

1. In Shalom Papers: A Journal of Theology and Public Policy, 5/1 (2003).
2. See Donald W. Shriver, Jr., "The Taming of Mars: Can Humans of the Twenty-first Century Contain Their Propensity for Violence?" in Religion and the Powers of the Common Life, vol. 1 of God and Globalization (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000).
3. A project profoundly related to this theme has just been completed at the Center of Theological Inquiry. See Patrick Miller and Dennis McCann, eds. Theology and the Common Good (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, forthcoming, 2004).
4. I became convinced of this point in conversation with him on March 29, 2003, in discussion of his books, including Morality and Contemporary War (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1999).
5. See his The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries (New York: Oxford U. Press, 1998), and the symposium on his work in the Journal of Law and Religion, XIV/1 (1999-2000).
6. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). Several journalists have argued that, more than Huntington, it is the ghost of political philosopher Leo Strauss that stands behind the throne. If so, it involves a more penetrating criticism of "liberalism" than any ecumenical theologian has yet mastered.
7. See M. L. Stackhouse, et al., God and Globalization, 3 vols.: God and the Principalities of the Common Life; The Spirit and the Authorities of Modern Life; and Christ and the Dominions of Civilization. (Fourth volume in preparation.) Cf. also the very important resource by James Skillen and R. M. McCarthy, eds., Political Order and the Plural Structure of Society (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1991).
8. See Nancy Rosenblum and R. Post, Civil Society and Government; The Ethikon Series, Vol 5, (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2002); and David Mapel and T. Nardin, International Society: Diverse Ethical Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 2001).