The Biblical and Social-Ethical Grounds for a Theology of Peacemaking in Resolving Violent Conflicts

Abstract

This article considers one of the enduring issues of Christian ethics: the question concerning whether it is permissible to engage in armed combat. Addressing the issue from a radical Christian perspective, this article contends that realism, pacifism and just war theory all fail to penetrate to the heart of the issue about the morality of war, and that each of these approaches is unable to provide valid theological or social ethical grounds for a theology of peacemaking. As a way out of the traditional impasse between the advocates of just war, realism and pacifism, this essay draws on the ideas of Glen Stassen and James Wm. McClendon in order to develop a transformative theology of Just Peacemaking that fulfils the biblical requirement of faithfulness and achieves the socialethical necessity of effectiveness.
This article concludes that a theology of peacemaking is indeed justified on socialethical as well as biblical grounds, but proper acknowledgement is given to the fact that this ethical debate is highly complex and that it engages participants at the deepest level of their Christian moral convictions.