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"Just War" talk has come up again—this time in the strident debates over Iraq. Pope John Paul II has voiced his objection to "preventive war" and "retributive justice" in the form of preemptive strikes against Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq. In November 2002, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement on Iraq condemning a preemptive strike against Iraq. Last month, on February 10, Michael Novak, a conservative Catholic American theologian, went to Rome to speak to a public audience in the Vatican City on just-war doctrine and Iraq. Speaking as a private citizen, but nevertheless as a guest of the US State Department, Novak went to Rome for at least three aims—one, to remind the papal authorities that the "aim of a just war is the blocking of great evil, the restoration of peace, and the defense of minimum conditions of justice and world order"; two, to convince them that Saddam Hussein poses a grave threat to the world; and, three, that the behavior of Saddam Hussein must now be seen in the new light cast by "another war," an international war, (an "asymmetrical war") that on September 11, 2001, was launched against the United States, the West, and the whole non-Islamic world. Novak's contention is that a preemptive strike against Iraq fulfills the classic requirements for a "just war."

We would not have such discussions of just-war theory at all if in 306 AD the Roman Emperor Constantine had not converted to Christianity. He believed strongly in the unity of church and state and set the stage for the great secular power wielded by the Christian Church into and past the Middle Ages. Aquinas developed the just-war doctrine in order to reconcile the moral imperatives which the Church had traditionally upheld with the realities of the ruling statesmen who have to deal with external threats to their citizenry. But if we step back from this and break the identity of Constantinism (the idea that Church and State should be integrated), if we intellectually sever the Church-State unity, we end up with just-war theory as a secular, humane, ethical standard for ruling powers. If we leave it alone, and keep it united with Christian doctrine, it is then a perversion of Christ's teachings on the proper response to evil. If we separate what Jesus Christ teaches and what is proper according to just-war theorists, then just-war doctrine becomes what it really is, and nothing more: a behavioral calculus for ruling authorities. We should not think any longer that it expresses in any clear sense the original teaches of Jesus.

Jesus never directly addresses the question of war or corporate aggression, but his teachings on love and nonviolence made pacifists of his followers and it called upon them to reject war and military life. Contrary to any concept of retributive justice, contrary to the idea of retaliation, Jesus taught instead: "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." [Matt 5:38-39]. Jesus taught a very high standard: "You have heard that it was said 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you: Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." [Matt 5:43-48]

And Peter and Paul continued the theme. Says Peter: "[L]ive in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing?." [1 Peter 3:8-9]. Paul says: "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath?." [Rom 12:17-19]. Also: "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever other commandments there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as your self.' Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." [Rom 12:8-10]

God Almighty, your love for us is the high standard to which we must aspire. Give us the wisdom of strategy and the power to change the hearts and minds of those who would trade quick vengeance for a pattern of good deeds, and teach us how to incorporate your Son's standard for brotherly love into every aspect of our daily lives. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

I really am not a "Ninja Quaker" (a phrase from the lyric in the old rock refrain). As a boy in Japan, my parents made sure that I studied Judo. In college in the U.S. I studied Shotokan Karate (at a time when the style was called JKA Karate). Much later, in my 40s, I became a student of Taekwondo, earning both first-degree and second-degree black belts in the Korean martial art. So I am asked on occasion how it is that, as a Quaker, I can study any martial art. I think the more important question is rather why, as a Christian, I should learn any techniques that can effectively kill another human being.

I respond in two ways: First, I study the martial arts for their value as sport—Taekwondo, in particular, is healthy physical exercise, an excellent cardiovascular workout, and useful physical and mental discipline. Second, I take seriously Jesus' command to his apostles to have ready knapsack, money pouch, and sword. I have to explain this.

After the Lord's Supper, Jesus said to his disciples: "When I sent you without money bag, knapsack, and sandals, did you lack anything?" So they said, "Nothing." Then He said to them, "But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one" [Luke 22:35-36 NKJ]. Now at this event he was surely telling his disciples that things would change after his death and resurrection, that as evangelists they faced danger, needed to plan for their well being (they might not always find hospitality), and would toil for a living [see e.g. 1 Thess 2:9], but the sword issue is perhaps more interesting. Whether he meant one sword for each or two swords for all twelve, why would he want to them to have a sword at all—especially since he would later tell Peter not to use his? [Matt 26:52; John 18:11].

There are three things a sword can do: it can serve as a deterrent to attack, giving the sword-bearer a measure of apparent safety; it can give him a kind of confidence, enabling him to walk into situations that he would otherwise not go; it can be used to protect life (one's own and the life of another): if used skillfully it can be used entirely defensively, without deadly force.

For me Taekwondo is such a sword. I carry it knowing that am not to use it to harm another and that, in fact, I do not need it when I put on the "full armor of God," which includes the sword of the Spirit, "which is the word of God" [Eph 6:11-17].

Dear Heavenly Father, teach us the proper use of all the artifacts we have access to, guide us always in your ways, and create in us such a love for other beings that your full armor is always sufficient for the Christian soldier. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we pray this. Amen.

My oldest daughter is Muslim, and I am learning from her much about being a devotional Christian. She prays 5 times per day, arising at dawn to approach her prayer rug for her first devotional. She covers her head with the traditional hijab, dresses modestly, and refuses to shake hands with men or remain in a room alone with any man except her husband or a blood relative. She will not let me display any early photographs of her, because she is not depicted as covered. She is careful to feed her family only foods that are halal (lawful) and not haram (forbidden). She fasts at Ramadan and honors the Islamic traditions and holidays. She performs regular wudu (ablutions). She loves Arabic food and is learning to speak the language. She reads the Qur'an like an earnest student of the faith and shares literature and emails about Islam with an energetic, evangelistic zeal.

What I am learning from her is that the Christian doctrine of the trinity is dark and easily misunderstood, if only because it is so difficult to articulate. I learn from her that religious routines—if not in Islam, then such as in the Mosaic law—so easily can become ends in themselves, ceremonies divorced from their purpose, behaviors that are empty of their original significance, regimens that exist because they are regimens. I learn that our Christian freedom is very often used unwisely and can just as easily keep us at a distance from God, as easily as any man-made religious routine. I learn, too, that I am not evidencing the same strength of devotion in my Christian life as this young woman and mother is showing in her new Muslim life.

As I watch the ongoing transformation in her, I am not dismayed in the least by the timing of her conversion (coming as it did after 9/11). Nor am I concerned about the strength of her convictions; even as a child she had a love for God that could not be dispelled. Instead I worry about her salvation: I want to share my Father's house with this wonderful person, who loves God enough to give her life wholly to him, even if ultimately she is perplexed about the direction that life is leading her.

Despite my genuine, growing admiration for her new faith and its habits, I still worry about this gentle, God-fearing person's plunge into a religious culture whose origins are shrouded by the same dark suspicions that cloak all religions whose core is a mystical encounter with a spirit being. I admit that this does not make it false. It will prove to be false, I think, because it engenders incongruities, inconsistencies, between its declarations and those of our Scriptures. After all, is this not how we are to test all prophecy? Although my daughter is submitting herself to the one true God (for "Islam" means submission), she is following a devotional routine that is human in origin, a path that is not lighted by truth, a will that is not God's.

Do I love her any less? Do I love her brothers and sisters in Islam any less? How could I do that? Jesus commands me to love even my enemies [Luke 6:27-28; Matt. 5:44]. If nothing else, I must show greater love for her and those within her new faith.

Father, let your Spirit always guide us to your good will in every aspect of life—in what we eat, what we drink, what we wear, what we say to others, what we see and hear, what we believe. Continue to move us toward your image, so that our example, our light, will outshine the dim replica of religious fervor in those who do not worship "in spirit and in truth." Strengthen us in our love and compassion for all who fear you and submit to you. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we pray this. Amen.

I've heard the phrase "There but for the grace of God go I" one too many times. It's a saying attributed to the 18th century evangelist George Whitefield, but the source is far less important than the message it manages to convey. On the surface it looks like a profound exaltation of the measure of God's grace upon the speaker, but once we peel away this veneer, we see that it is really just another sin.

Beneath the surface it says at least two things: First, that God shows favoritism—that he plays favorites—but we know that he doesn't [Acts 10:34, Rom 2:11, Eph 6:9, Col 3:25, 1 Tim 5:21]. Second, it parades the speaker's own sense of superiority—of pride—at least with regard to another person. And we know that we are not to hold or evince these sentiments, for this is not the way of a Friend's love for another [James 2:1, 2:9].

And yet the statement makes still a third error. God is the author of everything, including the good times and the bad times [Isaiah 45:7], and if we learn anything from Job, it is that we have no privileged information as to the reason for any human's suffering. Perhaps the Lord is meting out discipline [Heb 12:3-13, Prov 3:11-12]; perhaps this person is undergoing a trial that is meant to engender holiness [James 1:2-3, 1 Peter 1:3-9], or to bring about repentance [1 Cor 5:1-8, 2 Cor 11:17-33, 1 Tim 1:20], or perhaps so that "the work of God might be displayed in his life" [John 9:3]. For the most part, at least without prophetic insight, we don't know the answer.

The irony of this is that, rather than give the gift of grace to the proud man, God would give it instead to the humble [1 Peter 5:5].

Dear Heavenly Father, give us sensitive hearts and thick skins, so that we can love without timidity. Remind us of the importance of humility, so that your glory might be displayed in our lives, and give us the strength to enjoy the good and endure the bad without any doubt that you have our best interests at heart. In the name of Jesus we pray this. Amen.

There should be no misunderstanding among Christians as to what our main responsibility is supposed to be: Meet weekly for worship? Give alms and do good deeds? Pray unceasingly? Deliver the Gospel?

As Christians we have at least the three responsibilities dictated to us in the Great Commission [Matt 28:16-20]: discipling, baptizing, and teaching. It is not enough, surely, that we can honor this commission if we do only the last two, but it is possible, I think, to fulfill it by doing the first—because the other two will naturally follow.

It is significant that the Great Commission does not dictate that the evangelical purpose consists in delivering the Gospel message alone, but it does dictate that we are to make disciples of others. We effectively disciple by bringing the voluntary believer into fellowship with us and by showing him, and by showing her, how to love. Love for one another is a distinguishing mark of a disciple of Christ [1 John 3:23, 4:7-8, 11-12, 19-21], it fulfills the Mosaic law [Rom 13:10], and Jesus commanded it specifically [John 13:34-35; 1 John 3:23].

Dear Lord God, teach us always the way of love. Strengthen us. Enable us to live a moral lifestyle that is so desirable as to move others to share with us the good news of your Son and to learn your ways. In Jesus' name we pray this. Amen.

Why didn't the Gospel writers whitewash their accounts of the Apostles? I don't mean that they would deliberately lie about the facts, but that they would more simply put on a good face for posterity. They could have done that. I'm thinking here of something along the lines of autobiographies and "authorized" biographies, where the facts are told, but "told slant," with just enough of a spin to cast the subject in the best light possible. What happens, then, is that history gets rewritten, the subject's real dimensions are distorted, and we lose the benefit of genuine authenticity. Why authenticity? Because we all want some guide to living and some measure by which we can gauge our responses to the blind spots of life. The more we read about saints who never stumble, who never fail, who never backslide, the greater the distance between them and us—and the less able they are to serve as edifying examples.

The story of Peter is a good exemplification of a saint's life (if not also of the enduring value of Scripture for its applications to daily living). Through his confession of faith in Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of the living God" [Matt 16:16], he was called the rock of the church (and not because 'Peter' and 'rock' in the Greek allow a play on words). Jesus' first words to Peter were "follow me" [Matt 4:19]. These were also his last words to Peter [John 21:19,22]. Between introduction and parting, Peter's response to life as a new Christian is human, imperfect, and authentic. Without his historical example, in all of its unpainted dimensions, we lose the real sense of how it is possible for us to live as disciples of Christ.

Dear Father, thank you for the presence of your Spirit in the writing of our history and for the many human examples you have given to us. Let your Holy Spirit walk every day, every moment, with us and teach us, so that we may be authentic witnesses to others, according to your will. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

The U.S. has become an undisguised aggressor in the new "war on terrorism," looking anywhere and everywhere for "evil-doers" to vanquish. Like a child in the playground—who, having been hit, hits back—this government is on the lookout for a vengeance that is not its right to seek. And when the issue of Iraq is settled, will this government not look for another country to bully? After all, this playground is the whole earth.

We should be appalled at the thought of "pre-emptive" strikes, for not only is it belligerence: it is also a waste of the many peaceful alternatives available to us as individuals and to us as a community. Our great power should not be squandered through bellicose examples that only reinforce the image we have so mindlessly cultivated within every quadrant of this planet by our inability as a nation to speak with compassion, not hatred, with insight, not dogma, with outreach, not avarice—to live, like George Fox, in "the Life and Power that takes away the occasion for war."

Dear Heavenly Father, please reach out to our leaders, especially those who profess to act in the name of your Son, and speak to their hearts, reminding them that your desire is for us to walk in all your ways. Your true believers know that your love is made complete in Jesus Christ, and that we are commanded to love one another as Jesus himself loved; we are even called upon to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Teach us, Lord, to be good examples of life in the light, to be strong witnesses of your spirit, and to be such friends to our government's representatives that our witness prevails over the godless lust for revenge and domination. In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, we pray this. Amen.