Pacifism, Just-War Theory, and Non-Violence

Our JustFaith group has been focusing on non-violence these past few weeks. We have an interesting book that we're reading, "The Powers That Be" by Walter Wink. It's difficult stuff, and touches some pretty sensitive nerves of some of the people in our group (we have a former career military person in our group). I had never really thought too critically of the Church's teaching on "Just-War" before, but reading this book and considering much of the Scriptural "evidence" it uses, I'm reconsidering how I look at this justification for violence. As this author proposes, just-war would not have been something Jesus would have come up with and, in fact, for the first 300 years, the Church did not accept war as an option. (How things change when the power differential shifts, huh?!) So, our just-war criteria is a bit like a compromise, oh heck, call it what it is, sell-out, of true Christian principles.

On a related note, our most recent horrific massacre at Virginia Tech has me pondering why we're fighting a "war on terrorism" in the Mid-East, against Muslims, when real terrorism occurs regularly enough on our own soil. Why safe-guard me and my fellow citizens from Muslims and Mexicans? I'm in more imminent danger from my fellow co-workers, bus riders, and students than a specific religious or ethnic group. Can someone explain to me again why handguns should be legal? Their sole use is to kill other people. Clearly, law-abiding, sane people purchase them and then can unpredictably turn into crazy, dangerous, homicidal criminals. So why do we want anyone to have them??

Must be time to stop writing. I'm beginning to sound like a ranting, over-zealous liberal nut case too.