THE EPISCOPAL NEW YORKER

Religion’s Role in War

By Mary Beth Diss

The build-up to possible war in Iraq has dominated the headlines and become a major issue for the White House and Congress. At the same time, a question loomed in the minds of members of the Diocese: Had there been comprehensive deliberation on such military action or its alternatives? Since the answer seemed to be “no,” the Episcopal Diocese of New York arranged for a broad-based dialogue, titled, “Pacifism, ‘Just War’ & Jihad: Religion and War” to provide just such discussion.

The program, sponsored by the Diocese and the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Columbia University, featured three experts in each of the three subjects outlined in the title. Speaking on pacifism was Daniel A. Seeger, a Quaker whose conscientious objection to the Selective Service System led to the 1965 Supreme Court case, The United States v. Seeger, which resulted in a landmark decision that broadened protection for pacifists. The Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, former dean of Harvard Divinity School and current president of Catholic Charities USA, spoke on Just War, a theory he has taught and written about extensively. Giving the discussion an Islamic context was Dr. Peter J. Awn, dean of the School of General Studies and professor of Islamic Religion at Columbia University. The Rev. Winnie Varghese, Episcopal Chaplain at Columbia, moderated the panel.

 

The Rev. J. Bryan Hehir

Just War Theory
Hehir explained that the theory of Just War started as a moral argument used by Roman Catholics for the past 16 centuries but is also used in non-religious contexts. Just War Theory is “distinguishable from any religious affiliation,” Hehir said. He explained that this theory lies between the pacifist and realist traditions because it says that limited lethal force is acceptable when used for morally legitimate reasons. The use of force must be “always limited,” Hehir stressed, “on purposes, means and intention.”

There are several steps to determine whether a war would be just or not, Hehir outlined. The first is to presume against the use of force, since “the resort to force is always tragic.” Next, it has to be determined whether there is moral legitimacy for force in each case by analyzing the specific situation. The purpose of a war should be for what is considered a moral good, such as “protecting the innocent, preventing massive violations of human rights or overthrowing an unjust regime,” Hehir explained. Also, the war should be forged for right intentions and should not produce more harm than good. The war should also be carried out under moral traditions so certain norms are held, such as not directly targeting or attacking civilians.

Daniel A. Seeger

Pacifism
Christ’s spirit resides in everyone, according to Quaker belief, and “listening in silence for a reading from God is the essence of the Quaker faith and practice,” explained Seeger, who was executive director at Pendle Hill, a Quaker center for study and contemplation. It is through this Quaker practice of listening to God that true peace and justice are reached. “Human moral advance tends to occur by Divine inspiration,” he said. An example is the Ten Commandments, which, he said, were not reasoned but rather given from God to Moses. Therefore, moral issues cannot be determined solely by reason, but rather, by listening we can “discern what we are meant to do.”It is the willingness of Quakers to find God in themselves that leads them to the moral right, Seeger continued. He pointed out that since the religion’s founding in the mid-17th century, Quakers have recognized gender and racial equality, which “could not have been deduced by the proof of available evidence.” Quakers have also seen warfare and killing as always wrong, since the “anti-violence of Jesus Christ speaks to us undeniably,” Seeger said. As such, “Just War Theory seeks to enable us to serve both God and man. Jesus wisely taught that this is impossible.” Serving both God and man has led to many of the problems of the 20th century, Seeger explained, including reliance on militarism and a global economy that favors a few. By alienating much of the world and serving only self-interests, the United States has become an enemy of many people. “If we fail to provide the conditions of justice and fairness in the new global order… we will surely find ourselves in an endless war in which everyone uses and excuses terrorist methods,” Seeger concluded.

Dr. Peter J. Awn

Jihad
Jihad means “struggle” in Arabic and more specifically “the struggle within ourselves against the forces of good and the forces of evil,” began Awn, Columbia professor of Islamic Religion. With Islamic empires in the 7th century conquering and expanding and with Islam as a universalist religion, meaning that the goal is the conversion of the world as in Christianity, Islam became enmeshed in military and political struggle, Awn continued. For these reasons, jihad became a political as well as spiritual fight. In addition, since imperial leaders were also religious leaders, spiritual and realist motives became intertwined, and religious ideas were used to justify political ones. Ideas began to change, however, and “a more sophisticated later legal theory argues very clearly that the only morally legitimate war is a defensive war,” Awn said.

Since World War II, Islamic philosophy has seen broad changes in focus, moving away from the idea of universalism and more toward privatization of religion. The intellectual changes, however, have not touched much of the political behavior in Islamic states, where politicians use “corrupt moral rhetoric to legitimate their power politics,” Awn continued. He said that both the corruption of the Islamic governments as well as the United States’ misuse of the role as superpower are factors in the increasing radicalization of segments of Islam. And, the current relations between the United States and the Islamic world are faulted because both sides use the ideas of good and evil to describe the conflict. “It harks back, in an ironic way, to the imperial structures that pardoned the kind of Universalism of the community of the good,” Awn explained. This moral view of the “Axis of Evil” puts a naïve view on world politics and conflict resolution. To overcome the animosity, both sides must “create an environment, I think, where people are really willing to engage in substantive ethical arguments,” he concluded.

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