{"id":50,"date":"2009-03-18T16:01:45","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T21:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/?p=50"},"modified":"2011-04-16T18:02:02","modified_gmt":"2011-04-16T23:02:02","slug":"is-it-appropriate-for-a-christian-institution-to-support-a-military-unit-on-its-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/?p=50","title":{"rendered":"Is It Appropriate for a Christian Institution to Support a Military Unit on Its Campus?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is It Appropriate for a Christian Institution to Support a Military Unit on Its Campus?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Presented by Paul Sheldon & Joseph Betz, on Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 12:30-1:20 p.m., in Room 300, SAC. <\/em><\/p>\n

The life of Jesus brings a new covenant between God and man. The Prince of Peace tells us to put away the sword, trust in the Armor of God, and to love our enemies. If we are to give to Caesar what is Caesar\u2019s and to God what is God\u2019s, which do we put first when these two appear to conflict? Until the time of Constantine, Christianity functioned apart from the Roman government, and complicity was minimal. How has the Christian message of love and forgiveness changed in the intervening centuries? What are the responsibilities of the academic Christian community in this regard? If you have questions, please contact paul.sheldon@villanova.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The announcement above was distributed to all Villanova faculty and staff via the Campus Currents page, and in addition was sent to various departments (including Naval Science) and individuals who might likely have a special interest in the topic (background material leading up to this event is at the bottom of this post).<\/p>\n

About twenty-five of us were present. At the start of the discussion I distributed the following list of queries that I felt might help inspire discussion:<\/p>\n

Would Jesus understand why Villanova has an ROTC on campus?<\/p>\n

What does the bible tell us about Jesus\u2019 views on war and peace?<\/p>\n

If we say that Jesus would sometimes condone war, then when, why, and how?<\/p>\n

Have recent wars met the standards of Christian just war?<\/p>\n

What choices do ROTC students have for ethical decision making according to Christian just war standards?<\/p>\n

Can we be assured that ROTC students will be called to use their military skills only in wars that meet Christian just war standards?<\/p>\n

We are evaluating ROTC programs, not the participants.<\/p>\n

Should an academic institution have programs over which it has no control?<\/p>\n

What is the purpose of military training?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am grateful for the quality and variety of the discussion, and that we were not distracted by any knee-jerk animosities. I will not try to reproduce the hour here.\u00a0 I have copied three items that I think are relevant to the discussion into Comments below.<\/p>\n

I had prepared myself for debate on specific biblical texts as well as the work of Augustine and Aquinas on just war theory. Fortunately, considering our limited time, we did not delve heavily into such details. It seemed sufficient to note that the few texts of Jesus that talk about support for government are notably ambiguous, while the many statements of love and forgiveness are clearly stated.\u00a0 (Incidentally, my father\u2019s Ph.D. was in biblical text criticism.)<\/p>\n

Some background: This Ethics discussion was a key opportunity to discuss the question that I have posed on campus via the large sign in my office window that asked \u201cWho Would Jesus Train to Kill?\u201d (see www.peacefulways.com\/<\/a>\u00a0 and https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/<\/a> and Search for Jesus for more) The physical presence of this sign generated considerable attention and comment.\u00a0 But disappointingly, no one ever dealt with the question itself. When I moved to a smaller adjunct office this year, I did not want to let this question disappear without being addressed at Villanova. Thus I arranged (with the help of Joe Betz in the Philosophy Department) for an Ethics for Lunch discussion on this topic. I hosted a similar meeting two years ago on the topic of \u201cIs conscientious refusal to pay federal taxes for war an instance of civil disobedience based on holy obedience to God\u2019s will for peace?\u201d<\/p>\n

p.s.\u00a0 Villanova later removed any mention of the word PEACE from its Mission Statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is It Appropriate for a Christian Institution to Support a Military Unit on Its Campus? Presented by Paul Sheldon & Joseph Betz, on Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 12:30-1:20 p.m., in Room 300, SAC. The life of Jesus brings a new covenant between God and man. The Prince of Peace tells us to put away the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peace","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":454,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions\/454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}