Category Archives: Theology

Pacifism: Additional Material

Over at the Berean Spirit discussion group, a part of Yahoo Groups, several good folks, including Tim Archer and Bobby Valentine, are having a great discussion on pacifism. They even mention this blog now and again. They seem disagree — … Continue reading

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Pacifism: Just War and Christian Politics, Part 2

Frankly, I doubt seriously that many national leaders — even US leaders — give a lot of thought to just war theology when deciding whether to go to war. The churches don’t teach this in Sunday school or preach it … Continue reading

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Pacifism: Just War and Christian Politics, Part 1

I’m finding myself in the just war camp. I’m not 100% comfortable here, but it makes better sense to me than anything else I’ve heard. The doctrine defining a just war goes back to Augustine. Augustine was a bishop at … Continue reading

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Pacifism: Mere Discipleship, Dual Loyalties, and the Pledge of Allegiance

Lee Camp, a professor at Lipscomb University, has written a marvelous book called Mere Discipleship. It has a chapter arguing for pacifism. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he’s the first professor at Lipscomb to agree with the founder, … Continue reading

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Pacifism: Police and Defensive War, Part 2

Another thought experiment Imagine a world where half the nations are almost entirely all Christians. The Christians all refuse military service, and quite consistently, they refuse to hire mercenaries. What will happen? If the non-Christian minority serves in the military … Continue reading

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Pacifism: In Answer to Tim’s and Guy’s Questions

As usual, Tim has posed a number of thoughtful, challenging questions. I post my answers here because he’s pushed me to address some questions I was planning on getting to in future posts. I add my answer to Guy’s post … Continue reading

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Pacifism: Police and Defensive War, Part 1

John Howard Yoder argues that Christian pacifism should reject service in the military but not the police. After all, until Jesus returns, it’s obvious that life would be pretty awful for everyone if there were no police. The difference between … Continue reading

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Pacifism: A Reply to Guy

Even though he and I disagree on several things, I have to say that Guy has posted very thoughtful, very godly comments throughout these posts. I prepared a lengthy reply to a recent comment of his, and decided it would … Continue reading

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Pacifism: Fitting Government into the Story

We next approach the question from within the framework of the story (or narrative) of the Bible. In Genesis 3, man and creation were cursed because of sin. This curse brought forth pain in childbirth, strife in marriage, weeds in … Continue reading

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Pacifism: A Thought Experiment

Reflect back on the first few posts where we learned that Lipscomb and Yoder point out that the Bible says governments will be placed under Jesus’ feet, arguing that in a sense all governments — good and bad — are … Continue reading

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