[1] We have a special focus on just peace and just peacemaking
in this issue. Mark Hanson, President of the Lutheran World
Federation and Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, called for theological
work among the member communions on principles of a just peace in
his
September 2004 President's Address to the Lutheran World Federation
Council. Commenting upon Chris Hedges' book,
War is a Force that Gives us Meaning, Hanson said, "In our
violent and war-torn world, let us as the LWF deepen our resolve to
demythologize these myths [that help to engender war], quell these
fears [of the other], and together develop principles for a just
peace that become as defining of us as have been the principles of
just war."
[2] This issue is a modest beginning of a response from
some individual ELCA theologians to this challenging
invitation. It includes some theological reflection about
just peace and just peacemaking, as well as some thoughtful reviews
of recent books that touch upon similar themes. (The
documents and responses from JLE's May 2005 issue on "Vulnerability
and Security" are also relevant here.)
[3] This is the 10th anniversary year of the ELCA's adoption of
the Social Statement, "For Peace in
God's World." This social statement reminds us all of our
calling to be peacemakers and to search for what makes peace
individually and collectively. The theological responses in
this issue of JLE are in no way an official ELCA position on just
peace or just peacemaking, of course, although they are in the
spirit of both Hanson's challenging invitation and the calling of
"For Peace in God's World." JLE encourages more ELCA
theologians and other LWF communions and their theologians to
deliberate together and to take up Hanson's challenge to contribute
to the development of Lutheran theological and ethical thinking on
these themes.
[4] Hanson's challenging invitation shares some continuity with
Luther's own way of arguing ethical matters in his Large and Small
Catechisms. His explanations of the commandments of the
second table typically include both some exposition of the kinds of
actions or motivations that are prohibited by the commandments and
some exposition of what kinds of positive actions to fulfill the
commandment are required as well. In a general way, these
positive actions are also reflected in the explanation to the
fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer for daily bread. If a
peaceful life is what God intends for the creation and God's
creatures, we might ask in what ways can and should we act in order
to encourage a just peace in our homes, communities, nation, and
the world? And how can we think about these things
theologically and ethically?
[5] There are stirrings, meanwhile, in the ELCA that suggest
some hunger among us for serious work from our theologians about
just peace and just peacemaking, and for more leadership from our
members and rostered leaders in engaging in peacemaking. In
April, the ELCA Task Force for the Decade for a Culture of
Nonviolence held a training event, "Equipping for Peacemaking," for
ELCA members made possible by a grant from Thrivent Financial for
Lutherans. It helped to equip persons from approximately 40
synods to start or continue personal and corporate ministries of
peace education and peacemaking.
[6] The task force has since started to create a network of
peacemakers throughout the ELCA that began with over 400 persons
including the participants in the "Equipping for Peacemaking"
event. JLE readers who may be interested in this developing
network are invited to visit the ELCA web site: http://www.elca.org/nonviolence/
and click on the side bar for "Equipping for Peacemaking."
Or, contact project coordinator, Rev. Mia Baumgartner at peacemaking@comcast.net
to become part of this network as it evolves and help to shape its
development.
JLE Portfolio: Just Peace and Just
Peacemaking
The
Just War Theory of Peacemaking
by Helmut David Baer
Peacemaking is a part of politics. God wills peace for his
creation, and God's will for peace expresses itself partly through
government's work of preservation. This, anyway, is the view of
Article XVI of the Augsburg Confession. Earthly peace depends upon
political power, and, therefore, in the service of peace government
may "punish evildoers with the sword" and "engage in just wars."
One function of just war theory is to explain the relationship
between power and peace in international affairs. Government's use
of power in war, just as government's use of power domestically,
must be ordered to peace. Thus just war theory is a theory of
peacemaking.
Our
Pacific Mandate: Orienting Just Peacemaking as
Lutherans by Gary M. Simpson
The "pacific mandate" does not apply to Lutherans. Neither does it
apply to Christians. If that were the case, it'd be shocking. In
truth, of course, God's mandate of peace, of just peacemaking,
applies to all people and peoples. It pertains then to all
Christian saints who, simultaneously as sinners and as creatures,
stand under it.
Just
Peace and Just Peacemaking by William Tuttle
The ELCA adopted on August 20, 1995 its first social statement on
peace with the words, "We dedicate ourselves anew to pray and to
work for peace in God's World." That statement advocates a set of
principles outlined as the following three "tasks" to "keep, make
and build international peace: a culture of peace, an economy with
justice, and the politics of cooperation.
In
the Face of War by Larry Rasmussen
Bush has been re-elected, the war in Iraq rages on, and militarism
seems the order of the day. What's next for those committed to the
way of peace?