War, Iran, and Just War Theory

As you probably know by now, there is a greater concentration of US armed forces in the Middle East today than at any time since 2003. Yet there has been no attack by any country there against America. There have been over time threats and attacks against US warships in the region prior to the military buildup, but with little consequence. 

From the Wall Street Journal, free link to article:
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-middle-east-us-military-7400d800?st=du2MWT&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

The American forces are, of course, directed toward Iran. Last June, President Trump ordered US Air Force B-2 bombers to bomb Iran's nuclear-weapons production facilities, specifically those used to process uranium and related materials. This was done with great success, though whether those facilities can be reconstituted is uncertain. 

In early January, massive demonstrations against Iran's dictatorial regime began by Iranians began across the country. They continued for more than a month, although the regime suppressed them with increasing brutality; Britain's The Guardian reports 30,000 or more were killed. It was during those demonstrations that the American naval buildup began in the region. In early January 2026, Trump stated the U.S. was "locked and loaded and ready to go" to support protesters. No such action was taken, but the American buildup continued.

Presently, the US and Iran have delegations in Oman negotiating over the future of Iran's nuclear program. 

Iran and the United States have differing views over sanctions relief in talks to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday, adding that new talks were planned in early March as fears of a military confrontation grow.

Iran and the U.S. renewed negotiations earlier this month to tackle their decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme as the U.S. builds up its military capability in the Middle East, fuelling fears of a wider war.

Iran has threatened to strike U.S. bases in the Middle East if it is attacked by U.S. forces.

“The last round of talks showed that U.S. ideas regarding the scope and mechanism of sanctions relief differ from Iran’s demands. Both sides need to reach a logical timetable for lifting sanctions,” the official said.

“This roadmap must be reasonable and based on mutual interests.” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday that he expected to have a draft counterproposal ready within days, while U.S. President Donald Trump said he was considering limited military strikes.

The prospect of American war against Iran is real, though its probability can't be assessed with any degree of assurance. This essay is my assessment of the prospective war in the context of Just War Theory (JWT henceforth), a theological inquiry in Christianity going back at least to Saint Augustine, 354-430. It's most robust treatment was by St. Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274, whose exposition was so thorough that it still forms the basis of modern theory. I have written over the years quite a bit about JWT in different contexts.

Today my main points are that going to war justly requires that at least these questions to be answered in the affirmative, below.

1. Is there just cause for the war?
2. Is the war authorized by proper authority?
3. Is it wise, as far as we can discern, to wage the war?
4. Is there a just objective to waging war?

First, though, there is the question whether the bombings last June of Iranian nuclear production constituted "war," or were they military violence of a kind other than war. I think the answer is straightforward, for here the key point is not what President Trump wanted to do (destroy those facilities) but the means he used to do it. And the means were exclusively military and violent, though of course there was no other way.

Throughout history, to attack another country with military forces has been seen unambiguously as an act of war. Just imagine that the evening of Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese government messaged President Roosevelt that the air raid against Pearl Harbor should not be construed as as act of war, but only as a warning to the US not to inhibit Japan's imperial plans in the Far East. "We are prepared to do more," Japan might have said, if the United States did not comply. What do you think Roosevelt's response would have been?

And that leads to a second key point: President Trump ordered the air raids, so he does not get to call it war or not-war. That is Iran's decision. To expect that Iran's regime and their Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) to think of the strikes as anything other than war is fantasy thinking. However, that is no change of status for them. Successive ayatollah regimes there since 1979 have affirmed they are at war with the United States, which they nickname "the Great Satan" of the world. 

And Iran has been carrying out war against us. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran and its network of proxy groups are responsible for the deaths of more than 1,000 American soldiers and civilians. These deaths have occurred through direct attacks, embassy bombings, hostage-taking, and, most prominently, through the training and arming of militants in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. A partial list is here. 

One thing we must understand, then, is not whether we should go to war with Iran, but that we have been at war with Iran since 1979, which they have prosecuted in both word and deed. The question is, then, do we continue with the status quo or do we prosecute the war with means directed toward an end that we select? 

1. Is there just cause for war? 

Since just cause (meaning justifiable cause) is a basic tenet of JWT, it must be addressed. However, as I explained just above, we already are at war with Iran, which it initiated based on Shia Islam eschatology. When presented with such a fait accompli, asking whether we should recognize and act on that fact has no basis. On Dec. 8, 1941, President Roosevelt did not ask the Congress to declare going to war with Japan, but simply to declare that the state of war already existed. 

The question, then, is what is the justifiable conduct of the war we are already in. That is a question of our objective to end the war and of the means we use to do so: What constitutes a level of violence inflicted upon Iran's regime and armed forces that is would effectively deter them from attacking Americans or especially developing and using atomic weapons? 

That is, from the Trump administration's view, the very point of the negotiations with Iran in Oman today, to achieve that goal without military force - but with its threat looming always in the background. The American objectives to end the war must be tightly defined to enable planners and assessors to determine what must be done to achieve them, though certainty will not be possible. 

2. Is the war authorized by proper authority?

The US Constitution clearly grants to Congress, and only to Congress, the authority to "declare war." However, the Constitution does not define  what constitutes a declaration. As then-Senator Joe Biden accurately explained in 2001, the Congress has declared war when the Congress thinks it has. Hence, he said, an Authorization for the Use of Military Force meets Constitutional muster as a declaration of war.

I happen to be a professor of Constitutional law. I'm the guy that drafted the Use of Force proposal that we passed. It was in conflict between the President and the House. I was the guy who finally drafted what we did pass. Under the Constitution, there is simply no distinction between a formal declaration of war, and an authorization of use of force. There is none for Constitutional purposes. None whatsoever. 

Constitutional lawyers over the decades have held that varying kinds of enabling acts, such as monetary appropriations for military action, have also amounted to Constitutional satisfaction and, at least, consent of the Congress to action ordered by the president, in whom the Constitution grants authority to conduct warfare.

Since the dawn of the American republic, the Congress and the presidents have generally agreed that the president may order US forces into combat against another nation, solely on his own authority, if and only if there is:

1. Imminent danger of attack from the other power, so imminent that time taken for Congressional deliberations would hinder defense against it, or,
2. To protect actual threat against US citizens abroad, or to rescue them from actual danger.  

At this time, neither of these are the case versus Iran, otherwise justified though it may be. My conclusion is that if President Trump or his successor decides to elevate military actions against Iran, Congressional authorization must be granted. 

3. Is it wise, as far as we can discern, to wage the war?

With war already a fact, the question is how to wage it wisely. However, this question is really one of setting the national objectives and predicting their consequences. But that will always be broadly uncertain and as cannot be well answered except retrospectively. But doing nothing or taking indecisive actions would be profoundly unwise. 

The question of wisdom must be faced because JWT has long held that waging war futilely is it self unjust, no matter the justification of other tenets of JWT. And that leads directly to the doctrine of proportionality, which so many people think means that we may not respond to an attack with more force than the attacker used. It absolutely does not mean that. 

As I explain in my essay, What does "Just War" mean?, 

The doctrine of proportionality is simply stated that the means of conducting the war must be proportionate to the goal for which the war is waged. Another way of looking at it is that while the just ends desired do not justify any means to attain them, they absolutely justify some means. The tenet of proportionality, then, is to assess what the justified means are, then employ those means and not the unjustified ones. ...

Hence, proportionality means that one cannot use more force than necessary, but must use all the force that is necessary.  It is critical to understand that proportionality does not mean, and never has meant, anything like a tit-for-tat response. 

4. Is there a just objective to waging war? 

At a minimum, a just objective to the war must be cessation of hostilities by Iran upon US persons and  facilities. That means to do that range from settling treaty agreements in Oman to using military force against Iran and its  proxy militias. I personally am sure that Iran will not ever cease its warfare against the US and our interests (and allies) unless the ayatollah regime is ended and the IRGC is destroyed. 

That is exactly is the reason that Congressional and public debate must be entered into sooner rather than later. Actively warring against Iran may be the right thing to do (or maybe the least-bad option) but it must be the right way politically, strategically, and tactically. And IMO, that starts with explanations to the public of what is at stake and sober discussions in the Congress. What I do not affirm is that this or a successor president should wage this war on his own authority only. 

Related: 

Why Iran is betting on war, from the Financial Times. 

Has Iran reached its pivot point?

I am adding updates at the end.

I would hope that by now, readers are quite aware of the massive, nationwide popular protests and other actions by the people of Iran against the ruling Shia Muslim regime, headed by Ayatollah Khamenei. It began about 14 days ago, impelled at the start by the massive devaluation of Iran's currency, the rial, plunging the nation into severe inflation. 

But that devaluation was merely the "presenting issue" for the protests, leading now to millions of Iranian citizens taking to the streets across the entire nation to denounce the regime and in some places, burn government buildings. But presenting issues are never the issue, they are just the straw that breaks the camel's back. The fundamental issues relate to the decades of harsh, violent oppression of the Iranian people by the hardcore Islamist regime. Recall that just last month, there was the Kish Island marathon race where hundreds (maybe more) of women refused to wear head covering, defying strict Islamic dress codes that have seen increased public defiance since at least 2022. 

Just a few days ago, the regime blocked internet across the country. Elon Musk has made Starlink available to them, and almost all reports from the anti-regime movement are sent that way.

So what is the fundamental issue?

The popular rebellion springs from two basic conditions that have been building and reinforcing resentment against the ayatollah-led national government for many years. First is that in religious demographics, there has been a massive shift away from Islam in general, Shia Islam specifically. 

while we we commonly think of Iran as a Shia Muslim nation, independent studies, not under control of the regime, belie it. From, "Iran’s secular shift: new survey reveals huge changes in religious beliefs," published in 2020:

Our results reveal dramatic changes in Iranian religiosity, with an increase in secularisation and a diversity of faiths and beliefs. Compared with Iran’s 99.5% census figure, we found that only 40% identified as Muslim.

In contrast with state propaganda that portrays Iran as a Shia nation, only 32% explicitly identified as such, while 5% said they were Sunni Muslim and 3% Sufi Muslim. Another 9% said they were atheists, along with 7% who prefer the label of spirituality. Among the other selected religions, 8% said they were Zoroastrians – which we interpret as a reflection of Persian nationalism and a desire for an alternative to Islam, rather than strict adherence to the Zoroastrian faith – while 1.5% said they were Christian.

What accelerating changes have come in the last five years cannot be determined confidently, but the 2020 World Values Survey showed that Shia Islam adherents were down by 32% from the prior survey. As it also points out, 

Official figures often inflate Muslim numbers due to laws penalizing apostasy, leading to undercounts of atheists, agnostics, and other faiths, with significant numbers of Iranians identifying as non-Muslim or secular in independent studies. ... Conversion from Islam is illegal and apostasy can carry the death penalty, distorting official data. Independent surveys reveal a growing secular or non-Muslim segment within Iran, challenging state narratives.

So it is no surprise that the passing years have brought rapidly increasing discontent with the nation being ruled according to very strict, unforgiving dictates of Muslim sharia law, and increasingly lethal dictates at that. 

The pre-protest status quo was very harsh. According to a US Dept. of State report released by the Biden administration in 2022: 

According to numerous international human rights NGOs and media reporting, the government convicted and executed dissidents, political reformers, and peaceful protesters on charges of “enmity against God” and spreading anti-Islamic propaganda. Authorities carried out hudud punishments such as amputation of fingers (for theft), flogging, and internal exile. The government denied individuals access to attorneys and obtained false confessions through torture in some cases. It reportedly detained and held members of religious minorities incommunicado. In his July report on human rights in Iran, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran (UNSR) expressed alarm at “the disproportionate number of executions of members of minority communities, in particular the Baluch and Kurdish minorities,” who together accounted for 35 percent of the 251 individuals executed between January and June. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABC) reported there were 576 executions in 2022, including 71 in December, an increase from 317 executions in 2021 and 248 in 2020. On November 16, Amnesty International reported that authorities were seeking the death penalty for at least 21 persons, many for “enmity against God.” The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) stated that during the year, the government arrested 140 individuals, imprisoned 39, issued travel bans against 51, summoned 102, raided the homes of 94, and brought 11 to trial for their religious beliefs. Government officials, including the Supreme Leader, routinely engaged in egregious antisemitic rhetoric and Holocaust denial and distortion.

The report goes on to document repeated, violent human rights oppression by the Iranian government against vast swaths of citizens, particularly related to religion and enforcement of sharia law. 

Today's protest/rebellion

With the sudden devaluation of the rial, the "enough is enough" was reached. Over the last two weeks, street protests began and spread, slowly at first and then rapidly and widely, now taking place in every province in the country. Calls for the end of the regime began and spread, along with demands that governing the country be returned to Iran's historic monarchy, headed now by Shah Reza Pahlavi, who, according to The Times of Israel, is ready to return. 

The US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah says he is prepared to return to the country and lead a transition to a democratic government.

“I’m prepared to return to Iran at the first possible opportunity. I’m already planning on that,” Reza Pahlavi says on the Fox News show “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.

He adds: “My job is to lead this transition to make sure that no stone is left unturned, that in full transparency, people have an opportunity to elect their leaders freely and to decide their own future.”

But that may not be a great idea. As the NY Post reports, 

Pahlavi may be the figurehead of the monarchists, but he does not represent the majority of the 92,000,000 people of Iran or the millions of Iranians in the diaspora. President Trump has been right to state that it would be inappropriate for him to meet with him as president, as Pahlavi has proven to be a divisive rather than unifying figure. ...

What appeal Pahlavi may have is not due to any personal accomplishments — he has not created any successful businesses or built any institutions. Also, he does not have a revolutionary infrastructure inside or outside of Iran. He does not even appear to have a fully paid office staff.

His prominence stems from a sense of nostalgia for pre-revolutionary Iran, constant promotion by Persian-language media such as Iran International and reported cyber operations and diplomatic support by elements of the Israeli government.

Today's status quo 

Multiple news outlets have reported that, as predicted when the regime shut down internet access across the country three days ago, the regime has resorted to violence to crush the demonstrations. The BBC reports that as of now, many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Iranian protesters have been killed by Iranian police, Revolutionary Guard, and army forces. The UK Guardian also reported, "The streets are full of blood" and, 

Video emerged of riot police breaking into a hospital treating wounded protesters in the western province of Ilam on 4 January, shocking Iranians, who were outraged at the beating of patients and doctors.

The BBC reports that 10,600 people have been arrested and imprisoned so far, a figure that is surely below the real number. Hospitals are reported to be overwhelmed by the number of shot Iranians brought there. 

Bodies outside a medical
centre in Tehran, from Reuters.

The Guardian report said,

A demonstrator who gathered in the Tajrish Arg neighbourhood detailed how snipers were firing at crowds, saying that he saw “hundreds of bodies” in the streets.

A picture of two Irans began to emerge.

During the day, state TV and official government bodies projected an air of normalcy, airing pro-government demonstrations and footage of people going about their business in neighbourhoods that were free of any protest actions.

At night, videos of protests raging through the streets leaked to the rest of the world, brought out at great effort by activists and shared with the Iranian diaspora abroad. Videos showed protesters braving the crackdown, with thousands marching through the streets across the country despite facing what appeared to be live fire from authorities.

What will the next day or two bring? 

Ayatollah Khamenei has proclaimed the protesters as "enemies of Allah," which carries an automatic death sentence. Multiple Iranians have reported that the regime's forces have been firing indiscriminately into the crowds. 

That level of deadly force may quell the rebellion. OTOH, it may make the public conclude that it's now or never to overthrow the regime, concluding quite reasonably that to try again later will bring mercilessly forceful responses much more quickly than this time.  

Will the United States strike Iran? 

CBS News reports, 

President Trump was briefed on new options for military strikes in Iran, a senior U.S. official confirmed Sunday.

Mr. Trump appeared to lay out his red line for action on Friday when he warned that if the Iranian government began "killing people like they have in the past, we would get involved."

"We'll be hitting them very hard where it hurts," he said at the White House. "And that doesn't mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts." ... 

 The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous U.S. officials, first reported Saturday night that Mr. Trump had been given military options but hadn't made a final decision. The WSJ reports that Trump will receive further options on Tuesday.

The U.S. has not moved any forces in preparation for potential military strikes. ...

Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran's parliament speaker and a hardliner who has run for the presidency in the past, warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be "legitimate targets" if the U.S. strikes the Islamic Republic.

"In the event of an attack on Iran, both the occupied territory and all American military centers, bases and ships in the region will be our legitimate targets," Qalibaf said, according to the Associated Press. "We do not consider ourselves limited to reacting after the action and will act based on any objective signs of a threat."

Would US military intervention be justified? I says yes. But that does not mean it would be wise. And I would say as well that, unlike the limited strike against select Venezuelan targets to support the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro, military action against Iran would require prior Congressional authorization. 

But it should also be realized that Congress need not "declare war" against Iran. It need only recognize that the United States has been at war with Iran almost since the beginning of the post-Shah regime in 1979. While we have not declared war with Iran, it has definitely made war against us. And to ensure the success of replacing the regime there now may be worth the risks of direct US operations. After all, since 1979, Iran and its proxy groups have killed more than 1,000 Americans, including U.S. service members, diplomats, and civilians in various attacks worldwide, many of which occurred in the Middle East. See here for the list, which is not short.

There is another major factor, however, that mitigates against direct US military action. It is that the central key to whether the regime stays in power is the loyalty of the Islamic Republic Guard Corps, IRGC. The IGRC has two major functions: internal security through its Gestapo-equivalent arm, the Basij, and overall control of Iran's military and foreign policy, especially subverting western nations. On that function, "On 22 November 2020, Hussein Salami, the IRGC Commander-in-Chief, acknowledged: 'Today, the power of the Islamic Revolution has removed America from its strategic base. Today, the Basij discourse has spread in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Latin America, and parts of Africa' " (link). 

However, as retired Army officer and strategy analyst Robert Maginness observes, 

This creates a decisive tension. On one hand, the IRGC has every reason to defend the regime that enriched it. On the other, prolonged instability, sanctions, and economic collapse threaten the very assets the Guards control. At some point, self-preservation may begin to compete with ideological loyalty.

That is why Iran’s future may depend less on what protesters do in the streets—and more on whom the IRGC ultimately chooses to back.

I think that there is surely awareness within the Trump administration that while Iran's regime must fall, it must fall at the hands of Iran's people, not the United States. Otherwise, the new government, whether run by the Shah or a democratic vanguard of the people, will not be seen by other nations as legitimate, and probably not by a significant number of Iranians - remember, the vast majority of Iranians are not joining the rebellion. 

I anticipate that US action will be mostly covert and directed toward two main objectives. First, advisory, material, and financial support to the revolutionists, especially in organization and establishing internal command and control. We will also enable communications that do not use the internet. I do not rule out that we will supply them weapons. 

Second, actions to decrease the IRGC's effectiveness in the near term, such as jamming communications and inserting counterfeit messaging into their comms systems. Axios reported late Jan. 11 that,

U.S. officials said most of the options that will be presented to the president at this stage are "not kinetic."

Such options include steps to deter the regime, like announcing an aircraft carrier strike group is heading to the region.

The officials said cyberattacks and information operations against the Iranian regime are also being considered.

The focus will be on increasing the capabilities of the revolutionists and decreasing the ability and the willingness of the IRGC to support the regime. There is no guarantee of success, of course. And it will almost certainly prove much more difficult than anticipated. 

Let us hope, however, that the people of Iran may persevere and replace the regime there on their own accord, and with as little loss of life as possible. For if they do not succeed, countless more will be killed by the regime nonetheless. That is their new reality, and I have to believe that they know it. 

Update, Jan. 12:

The revolutionists may well be doubling down. Link to video: https://x.com/Tendar/status/2010465996042064329 

Hudson.org, Jan. 9: "The Ayatollah’s Regime Is Crumbling."

Update, Jan. 13: 

1. The value of the rial has now dropped like an anvil tossed from a hot air balloon. 

A good, short analysis is here, bottom line:

Iran’s currency collapse is the final non-kinetic phase transition before irreversible regime fragmentation. This is an extinction-level internal systems failure. ...

Regime Forecast:

No currency = no supply chain = no governance = no control

The currency didn’t just collapse

The state did

2.

The BBC: "Authoritarian regimes die gradually then suddenly, but Iran is not there yet."

How does an authoritarian regime die? As Ernest Hemingway famously said about going broke – gradually then suddenly.

The protesters in Iran and their supporters abroad were hoping that the Islamic regime in Tehran was at the suddenly stage. The signs are, if it is dying, it is still at gradual.

The last two weeks of unrest add up to a big crisis for the regime. Iranian anger and frustration have exploded into the streets before, but the latest explosion comes on top of all the military blows inflicted on Iran in the last two years by the US and Israel.

But more significant for hard-pressed Iranians struggling to feed their families has been the impact of sanctions.

In the latest blow for the Iranian economy, all the UN sanctions lifted under the now dead 2015 nuclear deal were reimposed by the UK, Germany and France in September. In 2025 food price inflation was more than 70%. The currency, the rial, reached a record low in December.

While the Iranian regime is under huge pressure, the evidence is that it's not about to die.

Crucially, the security forces remain loyal. 

More at the link, of course.

I do not want to pray for the killer, but I will

This photo of the unnamed, suspected murderer of Charlie Kirk was released today by the FBI. It is a frame from surveillance cameras on the university campus where Kirk was assassinated while speaking to about 3,000 students. 

I often quote what Preacher Mapple told the whaling sailors before they went to sea in Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Paraphrasing for brevity, he said that the things God wants us to do are hard to do, which is why God commands us rather than tries to persuade us. But to obey God we must first disobey ourselves, and we mistake the difficulty of disobeying ourselves with the hardness of obeying God. And we should recall that Jesus said, "My burden is easy and my yoke is light."

I know that Jesus was not joking when he commanded us in Matthew 5, "But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you... ." Although the wanted killer, whoever he is, is not my personal enemy or persecutor, I know I have to pray for him. 

But I confess I do not want to do that. In fact, I would rather pray about the killer than pray for him, like this: "O Lord, may you swallow him in the earth and commit him to the fires of hell." But of course, I cannot do that and be loyal either to my identity as a disciple of Christ or to my vows as an ordained minister. After all, we are instructed, 

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them." (Rom. 12.14)

God himself "is kind to the ungrateful and the evil." (Luke 6.35)

"As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live." Ezekiel 33:11

So I know that I indeed have to pray for, not against, this wanted fugitive. But in this I remember what my friend Rabbi Daniel Jackson wrote me about such a task, citing Proverbs 25.21-22:

If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, 

and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,

for you will heap burning coals on his head,

    and the Lord will reward you.

Rabbi Daniel explained to me that of course, one may interpret the first verse literally - if your enemy is physically hungry, give him a meal, if physically thirsty, give him water. But the second verse is a key that literalism is not the only way to read this. After all, you will not literally heap burning coals upon your enemy's head, nor is that a metaphor for discomfiting your enemy so much by your kindness that he will metaphorically be that uncomfortable in reaction. 

Instead, Daniel cited multiple Scripture where the image of burning coals being poured over one's head refers to the certain judgment of God. If there are coals to be poured, Daniel explained, make sure you do the righteous things necessary to avoid them. The hunger, then, refers to a spiritual emptiness that you try to fill with the bread of life - for Jews, it means the Word of God, the witness of the Tanak; for Christians it means that also, plus the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. And the same meaning for the water to drink. 

So, how then to pray for Charlie Kirk's assassin? I can do nothing except pray for the grace of God to fall upon him and for the Holy Spirit to lead him and give him clarity of understanding, to turn his purposes to righteous endeavors, to bring him to lay aside the sword and embrace the cross, and to surrender himself peacefully to officers of the law. More specific than that I dare not. The many blanks are ably filled in by God.

And for the record, I also pray for the officers of the law working the case, for leaders of our government, and the temperance of our nation. For this is also commanded by our Lord. And of course, the family of Mr. Kirk are at the top of the list.  

God bless them, every one. 

What does "Just War" mean?

Just War Theory (JWT henceforth) forms the basis of modern international law regarding the causes, conduct, and conclusion of warfare. JWT is not a modern concept, however. It has sprung over many centuries of thought in the Christian traditions to resolve the tensions between the teaching of Christ and the realities of national affairs in a fallen world. For example:

The principal influence on JWT were Saint Augustine, AD 354-430, and St. Thomas Aquinas of the 13th century. Of the two, Aquinas remains the more influential and all work on JWT since him builds on his work. 

But what is war? The question seems self-evident, but modern Conventions such as The Hague and Geneva Conventions are careful to define. For centuries, war has been understood to be an act of nation-states, not of combat between non-state combatants, no matter how well armed and organized. Understand, however, that armed conflict between a nation state and a non-state combatant does qualify as war under the Conventions and other relevant treaties. 

War is an act of deliberate destruction of an enemy's lives or physical assets. Absent "intentional lethality," there is no war regardless of what armed forces may otherwise do. Historically, however, the purpose of those operations has not simply to kill, but to compel submission by the enemy. As the US Army's World War 2 Gen. George S. Patton said, "Battles are won by frightening the enemy. You frighten the enemy by inflicting death and wounds." 

Europe's most celebrated theoretician of war is Prussian Gen. Carl von Clausewitz, 1780-1831, whose book, On War, is still studied around the world. One of his central tenets is that, "Politics is the womb in which war develops," and therefore, war is "the continuation of politics by different means.” 

Today's conventions clearly recognize that principle. 

In theorizing about war, these are the underlying visions of warfare that are used, usually more than one is used. 

As you can see, a nation's leaders may use moral principles to decide that employing the armed forces is justified under the various Conventions and the leaders' own national principles. But they may also see that while war is morally justified, it would be unwise and would likely have unacceptable outcomes. 

And that  leads to what are the bases, or templates, for which war might be made? I will let my slides speak for themselves:

Just War Theory JWT is a holistic view of war with a focus on attaining justice, limiting suffering, and encompassing all three of:

• The cause of war
• The conduct of war
• The termination and aftermath of war

So, let's look at the basic details:

Just War Theory, along with international conventions and accords, forbid wars of conquest or aggression. The basic principle is that a nation may justly go to war to defend against aggression or to protect such aggression against third parties. However, Europe's history, culminating in the 30 Years War of the early 1600s, led to rejecting protection of third parties as an excuse to go to war. The Peace of Westphalia established national, geographic boundaries as the demarcation of nations (warring of parties), not language, tribal identity, or ethnicity. And the Peace deliberately set the internal affairs of a nation as immune from interference, especially war, by other states. 

This has formed a foundation for "governance" (if one may use that word) for war ever since, and is reflected strongly in the United Nations charter. The UN charter does explicitly allow for international alliances outside the UN that may establish war making for defensive purposes, with NATO being a primary example. 

Just War Theory holds as a matter of principle that making war therefore must be undertaken to establish a more just peace than pertained prior to the conflict. And the war may not itself be of greater evil than that it seeks to prevent. 

That war may not justly be waged absent reasonable prospect of success is important. It relates directly to the tenets of just conduct of war, and especially the greatly misunderstood principle of proportionality, about which more later. 

The Principle of Proper Authority

Just War Theory mandates that nations may go to war only with proper authority to do so. There is no international agreement on what that may be as a universal standard. The UN Charter permits specific kinds of war without UN consultation, but requires UN Security Council approval for other wars. (President Truman, for example, gained UNSC approval for the Korean War.) 

The UN Charter also recognizes that nations make security arrangements and treaties outside the UN structure. The most famous example is Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which requires every NATO member nation to respond militarily if any NATO member is attacked and Article 5 is invoked.

 

However, the only authority that can declare the United States is at war is the US Congress, not the UN. Treaties do not overwhelm the US Constitution. The UN cannot make American war legal or illegal, but it can make it legitimate in eyes of world. 

The US Constitution distinguishes between declaring war, which can be done only by Congress, and making war, which is the purview of the executive. As then-Senator Joe Biden accurately explained in 2001, the Congress has declared war when the Congress thinks it has. Hence, he said, an Authorization for the Use of Military Force meets Constitutional muster as a declaration of war.

I'm the guy that drafted the Use of Force proposal that we passed. It was in conflict between the President and the House. I was the guy who finally drafted what we did pass. Under the Constitution, there is simply no distinction ... between a formal declaration of war, and an authorization of use of force. There is none for Constitutional purposes. None whatsoever. 

Constitutional lawyers over many decades have held that varying kinds of enabling acts, such as monetary appropriations for military action, have also amounted to Constitutional satisfaction and, at least, consent of the Congress to action ordered by the president, in whom the Constitution grants authority to conduct warfare.

Just Conduct of War

Let me begin by reiterating that warfare is intentional lethality and destruction. Just conduct of war means that there must be limits to both. And that is where the principle of proportionality comes in. 

The doctrine of proportionality is simply stated that the means of conducting the war must be proportionate to the goal for which the war is waged. Another way of looking at it is that while the just ends desired do not justify any means to attain them, they absolutely justify some means. The tenet of proportionality, then, is to assess what the justified means are, then employ those means and not the unjustified ones.

The centering question of the doctrine of proportionality is deciding the violence necessary to achieve the war's objectives while not using excessive violence to do so. To employ too little violence is as disproportionate as to employ too much. It is unjust to wage war ineffectively even for a just cause.

Hence, proportionality means that one cannot use more force than necessary, but must use all the force that is necessary. It is critical to understand that proportionality does not mean, and never has meant, anything like a tit-for-tat response. 

In this, as in most of the just conduct tenets, huge gray areas of uncertainty abide. The combatants must do the best they can.  

The doctrine of Discrimination of violence means that weapons may not be employed with little or no regard to the nature of the target. Specifically, non-combatants may not be deliberately targeted and in fact, warring parties must use all achievable means to avoid it. But as warfare of the past 100-plus years has showed, it is permissible to bomb enemy factories even though factory workers are not members of the military. 

However, an international standard called Common Article 3 governs combat between state and non-state combatants. Its states that civilians' presence at a location does not automatically make that location off limits from attack. As Human Rights Watch explained during 2006's Hezbollah war, 

It, too, can be targeted if it makes an “effective” contribution to the enemy’s military activities and its destruction, capture or neutralization offers a “definite military advantage” to the attacking side in the circumstances ruling at the time. 

Other Categories

• There are Hague Protocols on chemical and biological weapons. In this, United States policy since at least the 1960s has been in compliance. It is that the US will not use bioweapons, period, and will not be the first to use chemical weapons, but retains the right to respond likewise against an enemy's use of them. (As for nukes, US policy has not changed since they were invented: We have atomic weapons, and if you do not want us to use them, then do not attack us. Other nuclear-armed nations have basically the same stance.) 
  
  
• Use of civilians as hostages or “human shields” is prohibited. 
  
  
• Hospitals, other categories (such as houses of worship) may not be attacked. 
  
  
• No “false flagging,” such as marking combatant vehicles with the insignia of the International Red Cross. 
  
  
• Honorable surrender is defined, required to be honored. Pretense of surrender is prohibited for any reason. 
  
  
• Militarization of protected structure removes its protection. A hospital, for example, may not be bombed, but if a combatant places anti-aircraft weapons atop it, it may legally be leveled without warning. 
  
  
• The Conventions specify permissible treatment of POWs and refugees, including prohibitions of torture and other actions. 
  
  
• Retribution actions are permitted, but very narrowly. For example, if a combatant nation executes 20 POWs because two of them had attempted escape, the those soldiers' nation may execute in retribution POWs that it holds, but only up to a point. 

The Conventions also specify occupying power obligations and define the distinction between lawful and unlawful combatants. Unlawful combatants are not afforded all the protections of lawful combatants. 

And the Conventions define and require the responsibility of moral action and accountability for all sides. That is, a warring nation is required to bring to discipline any member of its armed forces who commits a war crime.  

Just Ending of War

Here, there are three guiding principles:

• Enduring peace 
• Restraint of the victor 
• Reconciliation among warring parties

What is the future of JWT, especially in its relation to international accords? I close with a link to an article by Jeff McMahan, professor of philosophy at Rutgers University and author of The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life and Killing in War. Click here: "Rethinking the ‘Just War,’ Part 1" (part 2 is linked at the end of that article).

The aliens among us - who is my neighbor?

Having this past week attended the annual conference of the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference of the UMC, I have questions about a resolution that was passed by overwhelming majority with no debate, "Welcoming the Migrant in our Midst." You may read the entire resolution here. 

I am impelled to ask some questions about exactly who the resolution is referring to. "Migrants" is a very inexact term. I would like the resolution's authors to explain who exactly is a migrant. I'll take it for granted that no US citizen is a migrant within the intent of the resolution. So:

1. Is a migrant any foreign national (FN henceforth) presently inside the United States? For example, does migrant status include foreign nationals who are here as tourists? 
2. Or, are there any categories of FNs in America who do not qualify as migrants, for example, FNs enrolled as students in US universities? Or FNs employed by a home country corporation and sent here for business purposes?
3. Are FNs who enter the US across the southern or northern borders through established federal entry points, with proper identity documentation, but not as tourists or for other temporary purposes, included as migrants? 
4. Are FNs who enter the US across the southern or northern borders by deliberately avoiding established federal entry points (hence, entering the US in violation of US law) included as migrants?
   
5. The resolution's first paragraph states that migrants "have journeyed here seeking safety, security, and better financial opportunities..." Specifically, then, are FNs who enter into the US seeking other things, such as smuggling deadly drugs (i.e., fentanyl) or engaging in human trafficking, included or excluded in the resolution's understanding of migrants? 

Once I know the answers, I will have more to say. Of course, what I say will depend on what the answers are.

The aftermath of Hamas murdering children

On Feb. 20, Hamas handed over to Israel the corpses of four dead Israeli hostages, including two small children, but only after using them for propaganda. 

Before handing over the remains, Hamas staged a parade of the bodies through streets of Gaza, proudly and cruelly displaying them  to cheering Gazan crowds. As the Wall Street Journal observed, 

Hamas put their coffins on a stage in front of a huge propaganda poster of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A crowd looked on and milled around, and “triumphant music” played, according to one news report. Mr. Netanyahu was depicted with fangs, dripping blood above the faces of the four dead hostages, smiling in photographs from happier times. “The War Criminal Netanyahu & His Nazi Army Killed Them with Missiles from Zionist Warplanes,” the poster claimed.

The coffin propaganda underlines the challenge of deradicalization for any postwar plan for Gaza.

Israeli medical staff conducted autopsies on the returned hostages. One was Oded Lifshitz, 84. The other three were Kfir and Ariel Bibas and their mother, Shiri. The Israeli government then announced: 

A. The bodies of the two children, one taken hostage at 4 years old and the other at 9 months, are injured in ways completely consistent with being brutally murdered, mainly by manual strangulation, and inconsistent with being killed by an air strike, as Hamas claims. 

Update: It is also confirmed that after the two boys were strangled, their bodies were pounded with rocks to make them appear to have been killed by an air raid. Details here, if you can stomach them.

B. The body of Shiri is in fact not Shiri at all. Hamas gave a corpse to Israel of a dead woman whose identity is unknown. 

Update: Hamas has now returned the actual remains of Shiri, whose identity has been so confirmed by Israel. 

What Hamas did drew sharp rebukes from very senior Arab Muslim authorities. 

And in yesterday's WSJ, author Bernard-Henri Lévy had this and other things to say about Hamas. 

Once, children were gassed as they descended from the trains. Hamas waited. Damn those who try to drag us into the false game of moral equivalency. These two breaths cut short, this double death of innocence, is Hamas’s abomination alone—and it is unforgivable.

Were the two muftis sincere in their condemnations? I think so. The muftis know very well that Muhammed specifically forbade the intentional killing of children, even in warfare. (That is no doubt why Hamas lied about Kfir and Ariel being killed by an Israeli airstrike. Hamas openly celebrated that they were dead but lied about how they died. Why one and not the other?)

Islam holds that there are two inarguable sources of commandments that must be obeyed with no exceptions. One of course is the Koran. The other is the Hadith, which is a collection of sayings of Muhammed. The Hadith is equal in status to the Koran. 

In a well-known hadith, Muhammed instructed his companions during military expeditions, "Do not kill children, women, or the elderly, and do not attack those who are not fighting." (Reported in Sahih Muslim, Sunan Abu Dawud, and other collections)

Another narration states, "Do not kill a child, nor a woman, nor an old man, nor destroy crops, nor kill those who are in their places of worship." (Sunan Abu Dawud)

Islamic jurisprudence distinguishes between combatants (those actively engaged in fighting) and non-combatants (those who are not involved in hostilities). Children, by their very nature, are considered non-combatants and are protected under Islamic law.

The deliberate targeting of children, whether in warfare or otherwise, is considered a grave sin and a violation of Islamic law.

The looming question now is, "In light of these Hamas atrocities, what happens (eventually) to Hamas and the future of Gaza and its people?" 

On Feb. 4, President Trump raised a lot of eyebrows by declaring that Gaza should become an American protectorate, the Gazan people should be resettled elsewhere, and then the US would rebuild Gaza as a sort of "Middle East Riviera." Political and media commentators scornfully denounced the idea right away. On Feb. 6, I commented on Facebook:

When the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in (IIRC) 2004-2005, they actually offered to do much the same thing as Trump said, although on a smaller scale. Hamas seized power shortly afterward and killed every Gazan who got in their way.

But could it happen now? I think this is less a real proposal than Trump's way of signaling to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab states that the status quo antebellum must not be restored. Trump's real message, I think, is, "The perpetual warfare between Israel and Hamas stops now." And yes, it has been perpetual; I visited the southern Israeli town of Sederot in 2007 on the same day it received a rocket bombardment from Gaza.

What Trump did was describe a wealthier, peaceful future for Gaza and the next step is to simply ask, "If not that, then what? Because more years of war is not on the table."

The Wall Street Journal's editorialists said much the same thing, but with more historical context and detail. 

President Trump’s idea that the U.S. might remove and relocate some two million Palestinians from Gaza and then “own” and rebuild the strip isn’t going to happen soon, if ever. But the idea, however preposterous, does have the virtue of forcing the world to confront its hypocrisy over the fate of the Palestinian people.

What was the Arab powers' reaction? It was that they got Trump's message, at least in part. 

Egypt led the response, probably because Hamas was a child of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian Islamist, insurrectionist movement dating to the 1920s. Egypt's government finally defeated the Brotherhood only in 2013, although the Brotherhood cannot be said to be fully neutralized yet. That Hamas and the Brotherhood are so closely linked is doubtless the reason that when the present war between Gaza and Israel began, Egypt publicly announced it was sending a tank battalion to its border with Gaza with orders to shoot on sight anyone crossing the border without prior permission. Egypt also strongly reinforced its border wall.

So it is no wonder that Egypt's immediate response to Trump's declaration was that it would refuse to resettle any Gazans, even temporarily, and that Hamas must have no role governing postwar Gaza. 

And now the rest of the Arab world understands that Hamas has committed atrocities that directly violate the commandments of Muhammed. Of course, the Arab elites already knew that, but Hamas handled the return of the dead hostages, especially the two dead children, so stupidly that it could not be ignored or shrugged away. 

I think a corner has been turned. If, as I wrote at the time, Trump's real message was "this is the last war Hamas will fight, ever," then I think the Arab powers are taking it seriously, regardless of the rest of what Trump said. The stupid parading of the four dead hostages to celebrate their deaths and the obvious lie that Hamas did not kill the children have forced Arab elites and rulers to take Trump's declaration seriously, even if not literally. 

So has a corner been turned? We can hope so, but at this point only the steering wheel has moved. The war is not over. But at least the Arab powers are finally confronting the fact that when it ends, the ending must be permanent this time. And that is progress. 

SecDef Hegseth and his pointless name game

NBC affiliate WFMY in Greensboro, N.C., reports:

NORTH CAROLINA, USA — The controversy surrounding the name of North Carolina’s Fort Liberty is back in the spotlight following remarks by the newly appointed Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

In 2022, the U.S. military spent over $2 million to rename Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty, distancing itself from Confederate ties as Fort Bragg was originally named after Confederate General Braxton Bragg. However, during his first day on the job Monday, Hegseth referred to the base by its former name.

“Every moment that I’m here, I’m thinking about the guys and gals in Guam, in Germany, Fort Benning, and Fort Bragg, on missile defense sites and aircraft carriers,” Hegseth told reporters as he entered the Pentagon.

The mention of Fort Benning also stood out, as the Georgia base was renamed Fort Moore in 2023, another step in the Pentagon’s efforts to remove Confederate associations from military assets.

Hegseth’s remarks align with a promise President Donald Trump made on the campaign trail in Fayetteville, North Carolina three months ago. “Should we change the name from Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg?” Trump asked a crowd of supporters, receiving loud cheers. “So here’s what we do: we get elected, I’m doing it. I’m doing it.”

I am a retired Army artillery officer. I served a tour at Ft Bragg in the latter 1980s. I am very definitely a political conservative, but I cannot agree with reverting the name back to Bragg. Here is why:

Confederate General Braxton Bragg

1. Ft Bragg was founded in Sept. 1918 as an artillery training center. Called Camp Bragg at first (because it was considered a temporary installation), it was named for North Carolina native Gen. Braxton Bragg for his artillery actions during the Mexican-American War in 1847. 

So far, so good. Bragg's record as a mid-grade US Army officer was in fact stellar. But another important reason the camp was named after him was, frankly, to appease Southerners while the US was at war in Europe. In 1918, there was still a large number of Civil War veterans, Union and Confederate, still living, and to their children and grandchildren, that war was not old history, far removed in time or space. So, the camp was named after a CSA general who conveniently was an NC native and Army artillery officer. 

Please note that there are no military installations outside the old CSA that were named after CSA figures. I will also note that Gen. Bragg was a truly dismal battlefield general, which IMO is another reason not to revert to using his name. 

I also think, however, that Fort Liberty is a nitwit name. Find a post-Civil War American military hero or renowned wartime commander and use that. 

2. There are some hard truths about the CSA. I was born and raised in the Deep South. My family's roots in Middle Tenn. go back to just after the Revolutionary War. I have ancestral family members who fought (and some died) for the CSA on both my mom's and dad's side (also for the Union on my dad's). Alexander Stephens, vice president of the CSA, was my wife's great-great grandfather's brother.

I take no back seat to anyone for Southern heritage and upbringing.

Like probably most native Southerners of my generation, I was raised being taught that the real reasons for the Southern states' secession was to preserve states’ rights and that the northern economic lobby was choking the South's economy with high tariffs on Southern goods.

Slavery? Well, it was in the mix somewhere, but slavery was not the real reason for secession. 

It is a lie, pure and simple. 

The states’ rights and tariffs arguments are entirely absent from Southern apologia until after the Civil War. In 1860 and before, no one in the South was using those topics to justify secession. Furthermore, in 1860 federal tariffs on Southern goods were lower than they had been since 1816. 

Why did the Southern states secede? To protect slavery, period.

Read the 11 seceded states' actual acts of secession, beginning with South Carolina's, and you will see that slavery was the sole reason for secession. South Carolina's act makes this very unambiguous: protection of slavery was the only topic presented as driving secession. Same with Mississippi. And the others.

The Confederate States of America was founded to do one thing only: to preserve the power of one class of people to literally own as chattel property another class of people. There is no other reason the CSA existed.

We are long, long past the time where any figure of the CSA should be honored with naming any federal property after him.  

I wrote  at greater length upon the CSA's secession and raison d'etre here: "Confederate monuments: So what? Now What?"

14th Amendment and "birthright citizenship"

I wrote this on another web site in 2010, so the issue of birthright American citizenship has been contentious for a long time. But the main points are still relevant, so here you go:

----------------------------------------

Many pixels are being lit up by some Republicans' commentary that the 14th Amendment to the 
Constitution "is in need of review."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told The Hill on Monday that Congress “ought to take a look at” changing the 14th Amendment, which gives the children of illegal immigrants a right to U.S. citizenship.

McConnell’s statement signals growing support within the GOP for the controversial idea, which has also recently been touted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

In an interview, McConnell said the 14th Amendment provision should be reconsidered in light of the country’s immigration problem.

The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Its intention was to ensure that slaves freed by the Civil War could not be denied citizenship. The part of the amendment for that purpose simply states,

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

This has been interpreted in the almost 150 years since as meaning that anyone born inside the US or its territories is automatically a citizen.

The 14th Amendment's crafter never imagined "anchor babies."

Babies born to illegal alien mothers within U.S. borders are called anchor babies because under the 1965 immigration Act, they act as an anchor that pulls the illegal alien mother and eventually a host of other relatives into permanent U.S. residency. (Jackpot babies is another term).

The United States did not limit immigration in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Thus there were, by definition, no illegal immigrants and the issue of citizenship for children of those here in violation of the law was nonexistent. Granting of automatic citizenship to children of illegal alien mothers is a recent and totally inadvertent and unforeseen result of the amendment and the Reconstructionist period in which it was ratified.

For decades after the amendment took effect, American Indians were ruled by federal courts, including the Supreme Court, not to be covered by the 14th Amendment because they were not fully under the jurisdiction of the United States. (The Tribes were then and still are in a treaty relationship with the federal government.) It took a special act of Congress in 1924 to confer citizenship upon American Indians.

In fact, there has never been a federal court that held the 14th Amendment conferred citizenship upon infants born to parents inside the country illegally. It is being done despite that fact.

So at a minimum, Congressional legislation clarifying what birthright citizenship is, within the context of the 14th Amendment, is not only appropriate, it is long overdue. I myself would support a Constitutional amendment to that effect. It would not require repealing or modifying the 14th Amendment. My draft reads:

Amendment 33 - Citizenship by Right of Birth Clarified

1. A person shall be a citizen of the United States by right of birth provided that the person is:

a. born in the United States to parents of whom at least one is, at the time of the birth, both a citizen of the United States and a de jure parent of the newborn, or,

b. born in the United States to parents who, though not citizens of the United States, are legally in the United States at the time of the birth, and who are de jure parents of the newborn, or,

c. born outside the United States to a de jure parent who is citizen of the United States at the time of the birth, provided that the birth occurs outside the United States because of United States diplomatic mission or military orders of a parent, or,

d. born outside the United States to a de jure parent who is citizen of the United States at the time of the birth, provided that the birth and identifying information of the newborn are registered within six months from the date of the birth with a United States diplomatic mission to the jurisdiction wherein the birth occurred.

2. Persons born in the United States and who do not meet a criterion citizenship by right of birth shall not be deprived of due process of law; nor shall any such persons within the jurisdiction of the United States be denied the equal protection of the laws by the United States nor by any State.

3. Congress shall have the power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation.

So there you are.

Update: Here are three more links relevant to this topic. First is an article by George Mason law Prof. Ilya Somin, with whom I have corresponded now and then for going on 20 years, though I have never met him in person. I would say he is, overall, a centrist. he says that Trump cannot simply order it. Click here. 

Next is George Washington University law Prof. Jonathan Turley, one of the most respected legal scholars in the country. His article is from 2019, "No, It Is Not Racist To Oppose Birthright Citizenship," in which he points out, 

... that one of the outcomes was the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868 to guarantee the rights of citizenship to protect the status of freed American slaves. That much is clear. The problem is that little else is. Since the 14th Amendment was ratified, many leaders have opposed claims of birthright citizenship, including former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Moreover, most countries reject such claims of citizenship. One can be entirely on board with the outcome of the Civil War, not be a racist, and still oppose birthright citizenship.

Finally, here is today's BBC's article, "Trump has vowed to end birthright citizenship. Can he do it?" I read the BBC because in covering American topics, I find it often more balanced and non-partisan than US media. Also, though the article does not say this, foreign nationals enjoy no birthright citizenship in the UK. 

Reforming Work - a Reflection for Labor Day

Genesis 2:15

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Colossians 3:23-24

Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, 24 since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ.

Today is Labor Day, when Americans pause and reflect on the meaning of work and honor working people. Let us acknowledge that that many people who are looking for employment, perhaps within our own families. Let us keep them in our prayers and send them job leads if we find any. And those of us who are working or, in retirement, enjoying the fruits of labor past, let us be thankful for it and be willing to help others now. 

On Labor Day we acknowledge the importance of work. We spend more time working or perhaps looking for work than anything else we do. It would pay, therefore, to take a look at what Christian faith can tell us about work and its place in our lives. 

I remember when people used to utter the words, “Protestant work ethic” as a shorthand way of talking about certain habits of work that were seen as the foundation upon which America’s material prosperity was built. The Protestant work ethic was a philosophy born from the Protestant Reformation of the early 1500s. Until then the labor or ordinary people was thought to lack either divine sanction or divine opportunity. Instead, what ordinary working people did was seen as necessary but spiritually deficient. Ordinary people were thought incapable of attaining anything better than a "secondary grade of piety." The "perfect form of the Christian life" was "holy and permanently separate from the common customary life of man." devoted "to the service of God alone."  

Reformation theology turned that around. The Protestant reformers insisted that the ordinary occupations of men and women should be understood as honoring God just as well as the monastic or priestly life. One’s “calling” in life came to be understood as any honorable occupation that a person understood was willed by God for him or her, so anyone, not just clergy, could be called by God to a lifetime of Christian service in different ways.

This Protestant work ethic says we are to be honest, hardworking, reliable, sober, mindful of the future, appropriate in our relationships and successful. We add that those things enable a Christian to give glory to God.

In Ephesians 4:28, Paul said that people should work with their own hands at what is good, in order that to have something to share with one who has need. Honorable work is honest work, honestly performed. The Protestant work ethic extends past that simple rule, though. There is an object to work for Christian people: to build up the Kingdom of God for the greater benefit of all the people of God. In the final analysis, all our labor is to be for the glory of God by the way it enables us to be about the ongoing work of Christ in the world.

I think we must not separate the dignity of work from human dignity. I read recently that in Japan almost no one ever gets fired from a job. We probably might say that is because the work ethic and skill levels among Japanese workers are so strong there. But that is not the reason. The reason hardly anyone ever gets fired is because by law terminated employees must be given very substantial separation payments and benefits. But if an employee simply quits, there is no such requirement. 

So a common practice in Japan is for nonperforming workers to be assigned extremely menial, unimportant duties that, the company hopes, will so dispirit the worker that he will finally quit in despair rather than go nuts. 

If you think that can never happen here, think again. In New York City it is so difficult to fire certain kinds of city employees that the ones identified for termination wind up being reassigned to completely empty offices or even utility closets, devoid of any responsibilities at all, while continuing to collect full salary and benefits, which cost the city $22 million one year recently. 

This is not what God intended from the beginning. In the beginning, God gave Adam work to do in the Garden. This means that Adam in his vocation was a partner with God in accomplishing God's intentions for the created order. It’s true that things went sour later. Indeed, the first murder recorded in the Bible, when Cain killed his brother Abel, was in part over the way Cain perceived the nature of Abel’s work and vocation. 

Paul wrote in Colossians 3, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for mortals, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”

Paul points toward a unity in our lives that brings even our jobs under the lordship of Christ. In other words, he is describing striving for a restoration of our work to the kind that Adam enjoyed. We are not to spend our lives idly, but in divine vocation. And even though there is an earthly imperative to pay bills and hopefully enjoy life without financial worry, we also are called to remember what Jesus said: we cannot serve both God and money. 

But we can serve God by making money while remembering that no earthly treasure lasts and that Jesus also told us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,” where it can be lost, corrupted or stolen. “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,” for God's care never ends. Where our treasure is, that’s where our hearts follow. 

Jesus is talking about more than money. He means the whole of life and what we do with our time. And that is the necessity of seeking a divine vocation because there is a difference between a job and a vocation. A job is what we do to earn a living. A vocation is what gives our lives meaning and purpose. A job is always related, usually closely, to worldly affairs. A vocation transcends the world even though it is carried out in the world.

For truly fortunate persons their job and their vocation can be united or closely related. When I was a candidate in ministry, I decided to ask a number of serving pastors what was the single most important thing about pastoral service to each of them. I asked twelve pastors independently, over a period of a few months and all twelve gave me exactly the same answer: “I know that I am doing with my life what God wants me to do with it.” 

That is precisely how I feel, too. I consider myself profoundly blessed to have my vocation and my work united into a singularity. I never awake in the morning wondering what my life is about. 

I am not saying, by the way, that I do this job well or effectively. It is to say that in my heart I know I have found that place that Methodist author Robert Robert Kohler wrote about: “There are different kinds of voices calling you to different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which” voice is the call of God rather than the voice of self-interest, cultural values or something else. 

One’s vocation is the life-work that a man or woman is called to by God. It is always a call to ministry of some kind. One’s vocation may or may not be the way that you make your living. I have known some persons who thought their income-producing job was merely a crutch that propped up their true mission in life, their vocation. 

Kohler wrote, “The kind of work that God usually calls you to do is the kinds of work that you need most to do and that the world most needs to have done.” Your vocation is not necessarily what takes the most time in your daily lives. It is what gives the rest of your life focus and meaning. Frederick Buechner wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” God calls each Christian to use his or her gifts in the world. One test of identifying your calling is to discern whether it satisfies your hunger to be about the work of Christ in the world. If someone doesn’t have a hunger to be about the work of Christ in the world, then their chances of discovering their true vocation are slim. Yet unless persons discern their vocation, they waste their time, money and in fact their very lives.

In 1967, Martin Luther King preached on, “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life,” in which he said, 

… we must discover what we are called to do. And once we discover it we should set out to do it with all of the strength and all of the power that we have in our systems. And after we’ve discovered what God called us to do, after we’ve discovered our life’s work, we should set out to do that work so well that the living, the dead, or the unborn couldn’t do it any better. Now this does not mean that everybody will do the so-called big, recognized things of life. Very few people will rise to the heights of genius in the arts and the sciences; very few collectively will rise to certain professions. … But we must see the dignity of all labor. 

Perhaps some of you feel that your work is a calling, enabling you to honor and serve God in ways you wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. If so, be glad! Christian faith sanctifies every honorable occupation. There isn’t any difference between the secular and the sacred, not really. Jesus was a preacher for three years but a carpenter for at least twenty. That sanctifies work. All of life is God’s, so let us strive to make sure that all we do glorifies God.

Here is Dr. King's complete sermon: