Just War and Christian Traditions

Just War and Christian Traditions introduces readers – lay persons and clergy alike – to classical Christian thinking across denominational lines on the tradition of just war thinking. Representing a two-millennia-old conversation in our wider cultural tradition, just war thinking (often going by the misnomer “just war theory”) is rooted in biblical texts from the Old and New Testaments, historic Christian thinkers such as Ambrose, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Vitoria, Suárez, and Grotius, ethical principles such as the “Golden Rule” and neighbor-love, as well as natural law principles embedded in Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian thought. As such, it is a shared tradition that unites the vast majority of the world’s Christians across denominational and theological divides.