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Christians, the State, and War

An Ancient Tradition for the Modern World
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In Christians, the State, and War: An Ancient Tradition for the Modern World, Gordon Heath argues that the pre-Constantinian Christian testimony regarding the state's just use of violence was remarkably uniform and that it was arguably a catholic, or universal, tradition. More specifically, that tradition had five interrelated and intertwined constitutive areas of consensus that can best be understood as parts of one collective tradition. Heath further argues that those five related areas of an early church tradition shaped all subsequent theological developments on views of the state, its use of violence, and the conditions of Christian participation in said violence. Whereas the sorry and sordid instances in the church's history related to violence were times when the church drifted from those convictions of consensus, the cases when Christians had a more stellar record of responding to the horrors of the world were times when they lived up to them. Consequently, the way forward today is for Christians to forgo beginning with the just war-pacifist debate, and, instead, to begin by letting their views on war and peace be shaped by that ancient tradition.
Gordon L. Heath is professor of Christian History as well as Centenary Chair in World Christianity at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario.
1. Introduction 2. The Formation of an Early Church Tradition 3. An Ancient Tradition, the State, and the Sword 4. An Ancient Tradition and Loyalty to Jesus 5. An Ancient Tradition and the Value of Human Life 6. An Ancient Tradition and Fallen Creation 7. An Ancient Tradition and Engaging the State 8. Embracing the Best, Avoiding the Worst: Living an Ancient Tradition Today
This monograph is a helpful exercise in ressourcement. Prof Heath first identifies a five-fold pattern of thought from the Ancient Church with regard to the state at war. With this tradition established as a foundation for judicious reflection, Prof Heath then skillfully probes the way it can help us moderns think about the subject of war, which sadly, to paraphrase Christ, "is always with us" in this world. An extremely valuable contribution to a much-written-about subject! -- Michael A.G. Haykin, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
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