Pro-MAGA. Pro-Trump. Pro-America. Pro-Family. Most importantly, Pro-Jesus. Here’s the news aggregator that delivers what America needs right now: jdrucker.com
In this American Spectator article, Elliot Resnick argues that Tucker Carlson’s blanket claim that Christians may never kill innocents in war does not reflect the historic Christian just war tradition.
- Resnick opens by citing Tucker Carlson’s recent argument that killing innocents is never acceptable under any circumstances by any person or nation.
- The article contends that Carlson is presenting a form of Christian pacifism as if it were mainstream Christian teaching.
- Resnick points to St. Augustine and later Christian thinkers to argue that Christian just war thought has historically allowed civilian deaths under certain wartime conditions.
- The article references the Crusades and medieval warfare to show that Christian armies have not historically operated under Carlson’s absolutist moral standard.
- Resnick distinguishes between deliberately targeting innocents and accepting civilian deaths as an unintended or unavoidable consequence of a just military action.
- The article argues that this logic also appears in modern laws of war, including principles that permit civilian casualties when they are not excessive compared with the expected military advantage.
- Resnick applies the argument to World War II, saying Allied bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan reflected the reality that civilian economies sustain military power.
- The article challenges Carlson’s use of Scripture, arguing that the Old Testament prohibition on punishing children for their fathers’ sins applies to judicial punishment, not war between nations.
- Resnick concludes that Carlson is free to hold pacifist views, but should not claim those views represent mainstream Christianity.
Read the full story: https://spectator.org/is-killing-innocents-christian/
