A Just War?
As I write this our national leaders are debating armed intervention in the ongoing civil war in Syria, a conflict that has already produced vast numbers of civilian casualties and most recently has seen the use of chemical weapons that killed an additional 1,500 people. The debate that now rages nationally brings with it the underlying question, when, if ever, is war justified? Most, but not all, Christians understand that under certain circumstances war is justified. It should be equally clear that as believers we should not just make the blanket assumption that because our country is contemplating war that it is just. Assuming that there are occasions when war is justified, how do we objectively evaluate a scenario so that we aren't assuming that it's just simply because our country or our favorite president is undertaking it? The ethics of war and peace are never easy, because even a war that may be considered just can result in hundreds of thousands or millions of de