When God Says War is Right (Darrell Cole)

If you're a Christian, and Jesus calls us to peace, is war ever okay?  In When God Says War is Right, Darrell Cole says the answer is 'yes'- but only under very strict scenarios.  Drawing heavily on early Church fathers Ambrose, Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin, Cole starts by discussing why Christians can use force, and even how force can be loving in certain ways.  He then looks when we should fight, and says specifically that war is just if and only if all of the following criteria are met:

1. Proper Authority 
• war "must be declared and waged by someone who truly has the authority to do so"
2. Just Cause
• "Those whom we attack must deserve to be attacked on account of some wrong they have done"
3. Right Intention
• ". . . we must intend our use of force advance the good and avoid the evil . . . [and] war must have clear aims."
4. War as the Only Way to Right the Wrong
• We have "an obligation to see that justice is done in the most efficient and least burdensome manner possible."
5. Reasonable Hope of Success
• There's "simply no point in sacrificing so many lives and causing so much suffering in war if we have no chance of succeeding . . . [though] success can be defined in ways other than the immediate surrender of enemy forces."

Cole continues with a look on how we should fight, and mentions things like just proportion, precision targeting vs. obliteration bombing, concepts like fighting with restraint, avoiding non-combatant casualties, etc. He discusses (and disapproves of) the nuclear deterrence strategy used in the Cold War, and discusses nuclear options in general.  He concludes by looking at recent historical conflicts and analyzing which aspects of them were just or unjust based on the criteria above.

I was concerned before reading that this would justify conflicts and support a 'crusading' view; it doesn't.  In fact, I was mystified by some personal reviews which bashed it as blatantly pro-war; those people probably didn't look beyond the (admittedly misleading) title.  Cole isn't saying war is always right- he's saying it can be right under a very specific set of conditions, all of which must be met to be deemed just, and even then, war must be fought in a specific way.  On that front, I agree with him.  I wasn't pleased, though, with his analysis of recent history- some surprising statements are made about the wars, often without sufficient reference or proof.  He seems to take different stances on different wars- what was okay in one may not have been okay in another.  In short, Cole needs to do more homework when analyzing the (un)just nature of certain wars, and he needs more than the several pages per conflict he allots to the discussion.

The book, overall, is not great, but it does raise a lot of good food for thought.  Regardless of your background or beliefs, war is a serious topic that requires a lot of thought and discussion.  Here, I liked the overall discussion on just war, and its individual principles.  I didn't like that the author leans a lot on early Church fathers- Aquinas, Calvin, etc.- which isn't inherently bad, but it's more important to focus on Biblical passages when proving positions (for the Christian, "because Aquinas said so" isn't an acceptable justification for anything- our authority is the Bible first and foremost).  Also, his points meander and are often-repeated.  More structure is needed.  Finally, as previously mentioned, he needs more thorough scholarship on discussing historical examples.

If nothing else, this work raises good thoughts to ponder about war and when it should (and shouldn't) be fought, but there must be better presentations of the argument out there.

Rating: C