In Christians, the State, and War: An Ancient Tradition for the Modern World, Gordon Heath argues that the pre-Constantinian Christian testimony regarding the state’s just use of violence was remarkably uniform and that it was arguably a catholic, or universal, tradition. More specifically, that tradition had five interrelated and intertwined constitutive areas of consensus that can best be understood as parts of one collective tradition. Heath further argues that those five related areas of an early church tradition shaped all subsequent theological developments on views of the state, its use of violence, and the conditions of Christian participation in said violence. Whereas the sorry and sordid instances in the church’s history related to violence were times when the church drifted from those convictions of consensus, the cases when Christians had a more stellar record of responding to the horrors of the world were times when they lived up to them. Consequently, the way forward today is for Christians to forgo beginning with the just war-pacifist debate, and, instead, to begin by letting their views on war and peace be shaped by that ancient tradition.

From the Introduction: Political problems have come to be the most fateful social problems. Three decades ago it seemed that economic problems were primary and Christian writers about society were generally preoccupied with them. Even then economic problems led to questions concerning the role of the state in economic life, which remains one of the most urgent of the political problems. Today, while there is not doubt about the significance of the interaction between economics and politics on many levels, it seems that the greater threats to man come from the conflict of political ideologies, from political instability within various countries and regions, and from the danger of nuclear war. There are issues of economic justice and well-being involved in all of these threats, but we can no longer assume that all political ideas and forces and decisions are merely reflections of what happens in economic life.

This is a comprehensive study in English of political thought in Spain during the Renaissance. In the early sixteenth century Castile experienced two major constitutional crises caused by the accession of a Habsburg ruler (shortly to become Holy Roman Emperor) to her throne, and by the discovery and conquest of America. Politically, these circumstances created a bizarre situation in which the venerable idea of medieval empire was forced to co-exist with a novel, imperial vision made inevitable by expansion in the new world. The strain imposed on Castile's constitutional fabric stimulated the most significant developments of Spanish political thought in the Renaissance. Against this background, Professor Fernández-Santamaria surverys the contribution of a number of eminent writers from diverse intellectual traditions who endeavoured to apply established political assumptions to these unprecedented circumstances.

Religion, and specifically Christianity, has often been blatantly invoked to support or oppose war and violence of all kinds. Christians are deeply divided over whether and when such violence is justifiable. James Reimer offers a fair presentation of these controversial standpoints, including the classical Christian attitudes toward war: crusading or holy war, just war, and pacifism. His thoughtful survey of Christian teachings and practices on issues of war, violence, and the state takes readers from classical Greco-Roman times to postmodernity. Arguing that the church's responses to war can only be understood through the church's changing relationship to culture, Reimer concludes with an analysis of the contemporary debate and proposes criteria for legitimate and illegitimate use of force by nation-states. Through confronting the Christian church's history, which is complex and sometimes difficult to endure, Reimer encourages readers to think criticially and come to hold their own position that promotes both peace and justice.

Explicates the way the Christian just war tradition shaped modernity and modernity's blindness to the interpenetration of nature and politics. This book sits uniquely at the intersection of just war thinking, environmental history, and theological ethics.

Examines the role of Christianity in British statecraft, politics, media, the armed forces and in the education and socialization of the young during the Second World War. This volume presents a major reappraisal of the role of Christianity in Great Britain between 1939 and 1945, examining the influence of Christianity on British society, statecraft, politics, the media, the armed forces, and on the education and socialization of the young. Its chapters address themes such as the spiritual mobilization of nation and empire; the limitations of Mass Observation's commentary on wartime religious life; Catholic responses to strategic bombing; servicemen and the dilemma of killing; the development of Christian-Jewish relations, and the predicament of British military chaplains in Germany in the summer of 1945. By demonstrating the enduring -even renewed- importance of Christianity in British national life, British Christianity and the Second World War also sets the scene for some major post-war developments. Though the war years triggered a 'resacralization' of British society and culture, inherent racism meant that the exalted self-image of Christian Britain proved sadly deceptive for post-war immigrants from the Caribbean. Wartime confidence in the prospective role of the state in religious education soon transpired to be ill-founded, while the profound upheavals of war -and even the bromides of 'BBC Religion'- were, in the longer term, corrosive of conventional religious practice and traditional denominational loyalties. This volume will be of interest to historians of British society and the Second World War, twentieth-century British religion, and the perennial interplay of religion and conflict.

In a world of war, terrorism, and constant threats to global stability, how should Christians honor Jesus Christ? Four experts in Christian ethics, political philosophy, and international affairs present four different views of just war, nonviolence, Christian realism, and church history, orienting readers to today's key positions.

Offering a new interpretation of early Cold War history, this book demonstrates how Christian agency played a pivotal role in the creating of space for the logic of nuclear deterrence and nuclear war, showing a balanced examination of Christians as enablers but, more provocatively, as resisters of nuclear prohibitions.