Christianity, Just War, and Ukraine

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. Like many of you, I’ve been watching the escalating events in Ukraine and Russia with a fair amount of anxiety. Russian President Vladimir Putin is demanding several things, including a promise for NATO never to expand eastward to countries like Ukraine. Tens of thousands of Russian troops have amassed on Ukraine’s borders, ignoring calls from the US and NATO allies to remove them. And, since it was only a few years ago that Russia invaded and annexed Crimea from Ukraine, the threat of a new invasion seems very real. So, I thought this week might be a good one to break some of the myths surrounding Christianity and war—and, in particular, to look at the theory of just war as it might apply to this situation. Though Just War theory goes back to Greco-Roman philosophy, it was best laid out in in a Christian understanding by Augustine of Hippo, and then later by Thomas Aquinas. In “Just War” theory, there is a hesitance regarding the inherent violence of war while also recognizing that sometimes it is the lesser of two evils. In the view of Aquinas, a just war must be waged by a lawful government, for a just cause due to a wrong done to those being attacked. The waging of a just war must also have a just intent to promote good and avoid evil. Aquinas was also clear that war should always be the last resort, done in the pursuit of justice. And later developments have also made it clear that there must be a probability of success and that non-combatants must be protected. When Putin invaded and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, he sent unmarked troops into the region and fomented a civil war that cost over 14,000 lives. Russia was slapped with economic sanctions, but little else. The Minsk protocol effectively gave half of the Crimean region to Russia as reward for his belligerence. Not Putin wants the rest of the territory, the regions that were given back to Ukraine in 2014. As I said, he demands a promise that Ukraine never enter the NATO alliance and is further demanding that NATO withdraw all forces from Romania and Bulgaria, both NATO member countries. Under Just War theory, wars of conquest are illegal war, with Russia’s desire to control the entire Crimean region being an example of just such an attempted conquest. Ukraine is a victim of this aggression, and her allies are justified under Christian just war theory to use force to protect her, if negotiations fail and Russia does invade. In the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, Ukraine gave up all of her nuclear weapons from her Soviet days to Russia, in exchange for a promise from Russia that Ukraine’s borders and territorial independence would be protected. Russia has clearly broken those promises. As John Davenport, professor of philosophy at Fordham University argued in a recent essay, the United States cannot betray and abandon Ukraine. We must demand the immediate removal of forces that threaten this country and be clear that if these forces are not removed by a hard timeline, Ukraine will immediately be invited into the NATO alliance. We must be clear that if Ukraine is invaded again, that the US and NATO will send in forces to protect the innocent citizens of that country. As Davenport says near the end of his essay, “Peace, as the aim of just wars, should not be the false peace of life under tyranny.” As a Christian, like many of you, I have lived through a good amount of wars at this point, a good amount of conflicts that, in the end, many Christian leaders have regarded as unjust. Both the invasion of Iraq and the occupation of Afghanistan were deeply problematic from a just war standpoint. It has seemed at times that our country is not really concerned about protecting non-combatants and citizens. And so, Christians have spoken up and have urged an end to violence. I have joined them in those calls. But protecting the weak and the vulnerable is central to Christian teaching and our siblings in Christ in Ukraine are hoping their western neighbors will stand up and defend them, that we will not fall back in a fear of war that would enable the tyranny of Putin to expand. We must never forget that that it was the hesitancy of many Christians toward war against Hitler that enabled his aggression to go unchecked until it was almost too late. Putin has demonstrated he will not stop on his own. We must force him to stop, or the peace under which we live will be a false peace caused by massive injustice and oppression. Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today.