The Bible and war in America: an historical survey

Abstract

"Christian attitudes toward war have a long, complex and unfortunately am- biguous history in the Christian Church. This ambiguity has led to diametrically opposed moral viewpoints on the questions of war and the Christian means to peace in the world. My interests for sometime now have been in the area of theological ethics. While I do not believe that Scripture supplies direct answers for most of our modern moral questions, as an evangelical I assume that the Bible is the primary source and final authority for moral guidance on any issue that calls for a specific moral judgment. Christian attitude toward war is just such a moral judgment. How directly has the Bible affected the Christian atti- tude in America about war? Has the Bible ever shaped and does it now signifi- cantly shape the moral views of the Church on this important issue? In this paper I have chosen to limit the investigation largely to the major wars of America. The goal is to explore whether the Bible actually has significantly affected the Chris- tian attitude toward war in American history. Modern nuclear arms have intensi- fied for this generation the Christian's need for moral clarity vis-à-vis the issue of war as never before. Toward this end the present study is directed."