Christian moral thinkers virtually from the beginning have found it necessary to respond to the common objection that war and armed force are contrary to Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount to turn the other cheek and not resist evil. Significantly, throughout the historical development of just-war thinking, Christian theologians discuss war under the heading of charity. What does love require? The consensual wisdom of the Christian moral tradition is that resisting evil and upholding the common good are consistent with the nature of charity. While Jesus does not indicate how we might respond in situations that entail a third party, Christian ethics does not require that we “turn the cheek” of another party in the direction of an aggressor. To the contrary, charity expresses itself in protecting an innocent third party from oppressive injustice. The enduring political-moral wisdom at the heart of the just-war tradition, though frequently misunderstood or ignored, is supremely relevant for today. Whether in the domestic or international context, it seeks to protect the common weal. Armed force by a duly constituted authority–to restrain and punish evil–is the other side of promoting the common good and civil society. From the standpoint of Christian faith, this can be a valid expression of charity, since justice, rightly construed, seeks to protect one’s neighbor and safeguard the social order.
Author: J. Daryl Charles
J. Daryl Charles is William E. Simon Visiting Fellow at the James Madison Program, Department of Politics, Princeton University. Dr. Charles received his Ph.D. from Westminster Seminary. He served as Associate Professor of Religion & Philosophy at Taylor University from 1997-2003, and is currently serving as an Associate Professor of Religion & Ethics at Union University. Dr. Charles was recently a 2003/4 Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Faith & Learning at Baylor University where he was exploring unity and diversity in the just-war tradition and making application of the political-moral wisdom of just-war principles to the problem of contemporary terrorism.
Dr. Charles is the author of Between Pacifism and Jihad: Just War and the Christian (InterVarsity Press, forthcoming); 1-2 Peter, Jude in the Expositor's Bible Commentary, rev. ed. (Zondervan, forthcoming); The Unformed Conscience of Evangelicalism (InterVarsity Press, 2002); Virtue Amidst Vice (Sheffield Academic Press, 1997); and Literary Strategy in the Epistle of Jude (Associated University Presses/ University of Scranton Press, 1993). He has also co-authored with K. Easley and T. Wilder, An Introduction to Hebrews, the General Epistles, and Revelation (Broadman & Holman, forthcoming), and with Erland Waltner, 1-2 Peter, Jude in the Believers Church Bible Commentary Series (Herald Press, 1999).
Dr. Charles' interests include criminal justice issues, religion & culture, Christian social ethics, ethics in the New Testament, and Protestant-Roman Catholic ecumenical dialogue on theological justification. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Regeneration Quarterly (1994-) and is a Contributing Editor with Touchstone as well as Cultural Encounters — A Journal for the Theology of Culture (2004-).