Just War and Christian Traditions introduces readers - lay persons and clergy alike - to classical Christian thinking across denominational lines on the tradition of just war thinking. Representing a two-millennia-old conversation in our wider cultural tradition, just war thinking (often going by the misnomer "just war theory") is rooted in biblical texts from the Old and New Testaments, historic Christian thinkers such as Ambrose, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Vitoria, Suárez, and Grotius, ethical principles such as the "Golden Rule" and neighbor-love, as well as natural law principles embedded in Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian thought. As such, it is a shared tradition that unites the vast majority of the world's Christians across denominational and theological divides.

Contributors

Foreword: The Honorable John Ashcroft

1. Christian Approaches to Just War, Peace, & Security, Eric Patterson and J. Daryl Charles

2. Catholic Just War Thinking, Joseph Capizzi

3. The Orthodox Church on Just War, Darrel Cole

4. Luther's Political Thought and Its Contribution to the Just War Tradition, H. David Baer

5. John Calvin and the Reformed View of War, Resistance, and Political Duty, Keith Pavlischek

6. Anglican Thought on Just War, Daniel Strand and Nigel Biggar

7. Methodism and War: Mark Tooley

8. Praying for Peace but Preparing for War: Baptists and the Just War Tradition, Timothy Demy

9. Anabaptists and the Sword, J. Daryl Charles

Eric Patterson is executive vice president at the Religious Freedom Institute and scholar at large at Regent University. He is author or editor of eighteen books, including Just American Wars: Ethical Dilemmas in U.S. Military History.

J. Daryl Charles is affiliate scholar of the John Jay Institute and a contributing editor of Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy. He is the author or editor of twenty-one books, including America and the Just War Tradition: A History of U.S. Conflicts (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019).

John Ashcroft served as the seventy-ninth attorney general of the United States of America. He serves in numerous capacities, including as Distinguished Professor of Law and Government at Regent University.