Nations at War — Just War, Pacifism, and the Christian in a Violent World
From the Crusades to chaplains in modern wars, Christians have argued for centuries about whether and when followers of Jesus may take up arms. The arguments are not academic. They shaped the cross on every flag, the Anabaptist refusal to fight, Bonhoeffer's involvement in a plot against Hitler, and the questions Christians today ask about Ukraine, Gaza, drone strikes, and Christian nationalism. This plan walks through the biblical and historical arguments seriously, refusing to let one tradition silence the others.
When Constantine put the cross on his soldiers' shields in 312, he did not invent the question Christians had been asking for two centuries. Before him, the early church refused military service almost universally. After him, Christians had to figure out how to be soldiers, generals, and emperors without ceasing to be Christians. Augustine wrote the first systematic Christian theory of just war partly because the question would not stay theoretical.
Sixteen centuries later, the same question keeps mutating. Is it ever right to drop a bomb on a city that hides combatants? Should an American Christian feel uncomplicated patriotism toward an army carrying out drone strikes? Is the church's job in wartime to bless the troops, refuse to bless them, or something stranger and more cross-shaped? Were Bonhoeffer and the German pastors who joined the resistance against Hitler being faithful disciples or faithless Christians who broke "thou shalt not kill"? What does Jesus's command to love enemies actually mean when the enemy is at the border?
What to Expect
Ten days through the texts every Christian tradition reads differently — Matthew 5, Romans 13, Exodus 20, the conquest narratives in Joshua, the prophets' visions of swords beaten into plowshares, Revelation's white-horse rider. Augustine on the limits of legitimate force. C.S. Lewis's careful essay "Why I Am Not a Pacifist" from World War II. Bonhoeffer's wrenching journey from the Sermon on the Mount to the assassination plot. N.T. Wright on Jesus as the kind of king who refuses Caesar's tools. John Calvin on the magistrate's sword. The plan does not pick a winner among the Christian traditions on war. It asks you to listen to all of them long enough to understand why faithful believers have disagreed — and to think more carefully about the wars of your own time.
Who This Plan Is For
For Christians whose default position on war is mostly inherited from their flag and their news feed, and who are open to the possibility that the gospel asks something stranger of us than either patriotism or peace-sign idealism. The aim is conviction held with humility, not slogans held with confidence.