Asian Continent

[1] In an article in JLE in March 2003, I argued that the looming invasion of Iraq was justified under just war criteria. Some Christian public intellectuals had taken that stand, but very few academic Christian ethicists did-at least not publicly. Most American and international church bodies spoke out against the war. Starting in summer […]

[1] I supported the President and Congress in their decision to invade Iraq. It is now three years after that invasion. How does that decision stand up? (I have given reasons in other essays for my support of the war and will not rehash them here. Suffice it to say that those reasons draw upon […]

[1] This is the third JLE piece that I have been invited to write on the war in Iraq, the first two being written in October, 2001 and September, 2002. As I look back on the contents of those earlier articles in light of what has transpired since then, I am inclined to say (with […]

This is a revision of a paper presented at the Convocation of Teaching Theologians, ELCA, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, August 19-21, 2005 [1] In 1942, at his inauguration as the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple referred to the nascent ecumenical movement as “the great new fact of our era.” Perhaps, Temple’s memorable phrase may […]

[1] I begin with an admission of my personal vulnerability related to this essay. Having spent most of my life on college and university campuses and knowing how critical an audience of scholarly experts can be, I undertake a topic related to ethics with genuine trepidation. I am a non-professional addressing readers who are likely […]

[1] In the July 2004 issue of the Lutheran, John Hoffmeyer, a theologian at the Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia, comments on the Abu Ghraib scandal by posing a quandary of the sort that ethicists used to love: what if by torturing one person you might extract information that would prevent a major terrorist attack? Hoffmeyer […]

[1] The Focus Kerala, a southern state in India, recently witnessed an unprecedented political uprising in the form of an Adivasi-Dalit movement for land rights and self-determination. This struggle1 has a long-drawn-out history, with political ideologies and parties of various persuasions taking up and sponsoring the struggles of Dalits and Adivasis in Kerala. However, what […]

The just-war tradition differs from pacifism in assuming that killing can sometimes be justified, e.g., in defense of the innocent. But just-war criteria also assume that war can be so destructive that the burden of moral proof is on those who would wage war. A basic distinction in the tradition is between jus ad bellum […]

The author argues that the U.S. and its partners have rightly arrived at war on Iraq as a just and necessary last resort. The potential problems with the just-war case are notable, particularly concerning the after-effects of the war, but they do not incurably undermine the case for going to war. Instead, both supporters and […]

Previous: Justification for Violence in Islam, Part I: Introductory Remarks [4] Islam emerged in seventh-century Arabia in the midst of a serious socio-economic imbalance between the rich and the poor, and between extreme forms of individualism and tribal solidarity. Moreover, it arose in the very spirit of populism of the Abrahamic faiths, that is, as […]