Bullies And Saints Part 2: From Julian to the City of God

I really enjoyed John Dickson's Bullies And Saints: An Honest Look At The Good And Evil Of Christian History. There is much to learn from the record of bullies and saints in church history lest we repeat their failures or fail to replicate their successes. Truly, as Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun. 

I am doing a series of posts where I cut and paste from his book. Where I fill in words, you will see [brackets]. I use ellipses for all the places where I know there is a gap, but (because of how Kindle highlighting works) I am sure there are many places where I fail to note what's written between two sentences I put next to each other. If what I post feels disconnected or clunky as you read it, that's my editing, not his writing :) 

The first installment was the most positive. The church's reputation prior to Constantine was pretty solid. But following Constantine's influence, leaders like Ambrose and then Augustine changed the tune the church had been singing. The changes may not strike you as jarring yet, but they are laying a foundation infused with a love of money and power on which others will build terrible things. Meanwhile, many Christians were faithfully continuing the tradition the early church had started.....

The Hunger Games and Just War Theory

In a previous series of posts, I used The Walking Dead and Philosophy to look at the worldview issues in AMC’s hit series. Since Catching Fire is currently taking the world by storm,  this seems like a good time to use The Hunger Games and Philosophy as a springboard to dive into some key themes in the trilogy.*

 In “Starting Fires Can Get You Burned: The Just War Tradition and the Rebellion Against the Capitol," Louis Melancon looks at the Rebellion through the lens of Just War Theory. As with my previous posts, I hope to accurately portray the writer's position while adding some comments of my own.

Mr. Melancon begins by noting three positions** people generally take when it comes to war:

•            Pacifism: violence against others is always unacceptable. This does not seem to be the position of any of the main characters in the Hunger Games trilogy. Clearly, there are no Amish and Mennonite craftsmen making cabinets and fake fireplaces in Panem. 
•        Political Realism: Thucydides said of the Athenian conquest of Milos, “The strong do what they have the power to do, the weak accept what they have to accept.” Violence is acceptable if it helps fulfill stated goals (Presidents Snow and Coin, and perhaps rebels such as Gale).  
•        Just War Tradition: Violence may be acceptable if used in a just cause and exercised by just means. This theory, which has Cicero, Augustine and Aquinas in its historical camp, offers a middle ground between do nothing and doing anything. This position is grounded solidly in the Christian tradition, but is not limited to those of religious persuasion.

Just War Theory can be broken down into three categories: jus ad bellum (the right to go to war), jus in bello (right conduct within war), and jus post bellum (justice after war).