Article

Is just war spirituality possible ?

Martin L. Cook

• Nova et Vetera, (english ed.), Vol. 10, no. 4, 2012, p. 1141-1156

English

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In this essay, the author wishes to explore a topic that he finds troubling and difficult - and about which he suffers a number of disadvantages in even attempting to address. But it is a fundamental question that lies at the heart of the cogency of the entire enterprise of Christian just war thinking. The question is this : is it possible, in the midst of combat, to maintain the kinds of attitudes and the psychological states that Christian just war writers hold out as the moral ideal for the Christian soldier ? Following that discussion, he will takes up a perhaps even more troubling issue : the rise, among some in the ranks of the US military, of a new "holy war" mentality, which frames much of the current US military engagement in the world in terms of "spiritual warfare".