A Niebuhrian pacifism for an imperfect world

2020 ◽  
pp. 175508822097899
Author(s):  
Jeremy Moses
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Just War ◽  
Later Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
Christian Realism ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Over Time

This article considers the role that might be played by the political thought of Reinhold Niebuhr in contemporary debates over pacifism. It begins with an overview of Niebuhr’s changing position on pacifism, showing how his early commitment to anti-war principles gradually faded over time and was replaced with a pragmatic approach to just war thinking in his later life. The article then considers whether this drift away from pacifism necessarily means that there is nothing in Niebuhrian Christian realism for contemporary pacifist thought. Drawing on Niebuhr’s critique of perfectionist liberalism, it argues that an imperfect and non-absolute pacifism that accepts the permanent possibility of political violence but refuses to offer moral endorsement to such violence can offer a viable political position in current debates on war and peace, particularly in opposition to just war approaches.

Migration and Refuge

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Patrick Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Haitian Literature ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Natural Catastrophes ◽  
The World ◽  
Over Time

This book argues that contemporary Haitian literature historicizes the political and environmental problems brought to the surface by the 2010 earthquake by building on texts of earlier generations, notably at the end of the Duvalier era and its aftermath. Haitian writers have made profound contributions to debates about the converging paths of political crises and natural catastrophes, yet their writings on the legacies of colonialism, imperialism, and neoliberalism are often neglected in heated debates about environmental futures. The earthquake only exacerbated this contradiction. Despite the fact that Haitian authors have long treated the connections between political violence, social and economic precariousness, and ecological degradation, in media coverage around the world, the earthquake would have suddenly exposed scandalous conditions on the ground in Haiti. Informed by Haitian studies and models of postcolonial ecocriticism, the book conceives of literature as an “eco-archive,” or a body of texts that depicts ecological change over time and its impact on social and environmental justice. Focusing equally on established and less well-known authors, this study contends that the eco-archive challenges future-oriented, universalizing narratives of the Anthropocene and the global refugee crisis with portrayals of different forms and paths of migration and refuge within Haiti and around the Americas.

Realists and Pacifists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ruse
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Great War ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
Christian Realism ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Christian Leaders

Christians, in the years after the Great War until the end of the Second War, continued divided. There were those who regretted war but felt it sometimes necessary. Prominent here was the American Lutheran theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. His “Christian realism” started with original sin but did not follow a strict just-war-theory line. He argued that privately we ought to follow Jesus and eschew violence, but as members of society we sometimes need to fight. Karl Barth, who broke from his mentor Adolf von Harnack over the morality of the First War, stood against the Nazis and, although also not a just war theorist, argued the necessity of conflict against Hitler. Countering all of these were the pacifists, notably in America the preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick, and in England the Anglican priest Dick Sheppard. When war was again declared in 1939, the Christian leaders on both sides again took up the call to arms in the name of Jesus. A notable exception was the still-undergraduate, recent Catholic convert, future Wittgensteinian philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, who was no pacifist but who argued that entering the conflict against Hitler did not fill the requirements demanded of an Augustinian just war.

Violence, Pacifism, and the Use of Force

2021 ◽  
pp. 450-466
Author(s):  
G. Scott Davis
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
World War ◽  
Christian Realism ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Fellowship Of Reconciliation ◽  
Second World

This chapter lays out the historical development of Niebuhr’s thought on war and peace in the context of American history and religious thought. It argues that in his early thought he accepts the received wisdom concerning early Christian non-violence, a position that led him to join the “Fellowship of Reconciliation” in 1928. With the Japanese incursions into China in the early 1930s, however, his position began to shift in ways captured in his early exchange with his brother, H. Richard Niebuhr. By the time he delivered the Gifford Lectures, at the very beginning of the Second World War, he has rejected pacifism and begun to develop the positions associated with ‘Christian Realism’. This extended into the early period of nuclear deterrence, though with increasing qualification. By the early 1960s, the perceived lack of restraint led Paul Ramsey to turn to the Catholic just war tradition to articulate a Reformation doctrine of principled love that could clarify which uses of force were acceptable and which had to be rejected. The tradition of Niebuhr persists, however, in such thinkers as John Carlson, whose Christian realist account of war and peace draws directly from Niebuhr and his legacy.

scholarly journals Reinhold Niebuhr and the Christian realist pendulum

2020 ◽  
pp. 175508822097900
Author(s):  
Vassilios Paipais
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
Christian Realism ◽  
Political Judgement ◽  
Just War Doctrine ◽  
Christian Century ◽  
Moral Convictions

Reinhold Niebuhr is widely acknowledged as the father of Christian realism and a staunch critic of pacifism. In a famous exchange with his brother H. Richard in The Christian Century, Niebuhr defended the necessity of entering the fray of battle to combat evil as opposed to opting for non-violent detachment that ultimately usurps God’s authority to decide on final matters. Niebuhr, however, never endorsed an aggressive Just War doctrine. Striving to reconcile the Christian command of love with the harsh realities of power resulting from universal sinfulness, Niebuhr emphasised the necessity of negotiating the distance between the two extremes of a pendulum swinging from Christian pacifism to the endorsement of interventionist policies. Rather than this being an expression of the ambiguity of his moral convictions, this paper argues that it is a product of his sensitivity to applying contextual moral and political judgement as an exercise of theological responsibility.

scholarly journals Blessed [Are] the Peacemakers... Grotius on the Just War and Christian Pacifism

Grotiana ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthijs De Blois
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Just War ◽  
The Political ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Central Tenet ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
Proper Interpretation

AbstractIn The Law of War and Peace Grotius needs many more pages for the theological arguments in the debate on war and peace than for the arguments derived from natural law and international law. Apparently the controversy within Christendom on the justifiability of warfare was one of the most important issues to be addressed in his magnum opus. The general discussion in his days was about the proper interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, the authority of which was accepted by all participants. This contribution focuses on the position of Hugo Grotius in this debate, confronting his ideas with the biblical arguments of those who (almost) completely rejected warfare, more in particular Erasmus and the Anabaptist branch of the Reformation. Grotius rejected the arguments in favour of Christian pacifism, which was to a considerable degree defended by Erasmus and which formed a central tenet of the Anabaptists. The latter's apolitical stand was not shared by Grotius or by Erasmus who were both albeit to different degrees involved in the political debate and practice in the field of war and peace.

War and Sovereignty in Medieval Roman Law

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-63
Author(s):  
Ryan Greenwood
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Just War ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
The Political ◽  
War And Peace

The theory of just war in medieval canon law and theology has attracted to it a large body of scholarship, and is recognized as an important foundation for Western approaches to the study of ethics in war. By contrast, the tradition on war in medieval Roman law has not received much attention, although it developed doctrines that are distinct from those in canon law and theology. The oversight is notable because medieval Roman law on war influenced subsequent tradition, forming with canon law the essential basis for early modern legal thought on war and peace. While the main canonistic contributions to legal theory on war came in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Roman jurists added new opinion in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which can be related to the political life of Italy and to the growth of the independent cities. By the fourteenth century, Roman lawyers (or civilians) often considered licit war from a secular and pragmatic perspective, and associated a right of war with sovereignty. Here, I would like to trace the development of this theory, from roughly 1250 to 1450, and particularly a view that sovereigns licitly judged the justice of their own causes, as a remedy for a lack of superior authority.

Topographies of Removal

2019 ◽  
pp. 189-215
Author(s):  
Maria Theresia Starzmann
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Silences ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Blind Spots

Archaeological studies tend to examine prisons as individual sites that order space and restrict mobility. Prisons are not isolated places, however. They are distributed across vast landscapes, forming carceral archipelagos that serve the purpose of removing undesirable populations from political life. Over time, this practice of social banishment has given shape to what I call “topographies of removal”—a geography capable of obscuring the political violence of prisons. Rethinking the archaeology of prisons means revealing the historical silences and blind spots contained in these topographies.

scholarly journals Najwyższa Rada Korpusu Urzędników Sądowych we Francji

2020 ◽  
Vol 119 ◽  
pp. 49-57
Author(s):  
Daniel Dyjak
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Fifth Republic ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Over Time

HIGH COUNCIL OF THE JUDICIARY IN FRANCEThe article elaborates the political position of the High Council of the Judiciary in France, as well as the number of changes that this body has undergone as a result of several amendments to the Constitution of the Fifth Republic. The High Council, established initially as a body subordinate to the executive, evolves over time towards greater independence. This results from the increasing representation of judges and prosecutors in the structure of the High Council, strengthening of its competences in the process of appointing judges, and expanding the powers related to disciplinary matters. Nevertheless, this process has not ended yet, as further changes are planned to enhance the emancipation of the High Council.

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