Two Things

Coffee this Friday, October 13, at the usual time and place.

(1) Love—and protect—thy neighbor: As I watched Hamas’s barbaric attacks on Israeli civilians unfold over the weekend, I was reminded of Robert Nicholson’s 2019 essay calling on American Christians to help protect our Jewish neighbors—words as poignant now as they were then:

The best response to anti-Semitism isn’t anti-anti-Semitism. It is philo-Semitism, love of the Jewish people. But a philo-Semitism of words will do nothing; it must be incarnated and turned to action….

Every church should appoint a liaison to the local Jewish community whose job is to establish rapport and build friendships for no other purpose than to show solidarity. The message is simple: You aren’t alone.

But American Christians can go even further by resolving to protect—physically protect—local Jewish institutions and individuals [such as through an] all-volunteer, grassroots neighborhood-watch network manned by Christians and deployed to stand guard at local Jewish synagogues and community centers…. The idea sounds complicated, but it can start small. Even one Christian standing outside the door of a synagogue with cell phone in hand will send a message to people inside and outside that this community has friends….

It is time to stop talking and start doing. I for one stand ready to act.

(2) Military necessity: Eric Patterson and Marc LiVecche are editors of a forthcoming volume titled Military Necessity and Just War Statecraft: The Principle of National Security Stewardship. Here’s the abstract:

The principle of military necessity is well-understood in the manuals of modern militaries and is recognized in the war convention. It is the idea that battlefield commanders should make every effort to win on a local battlefield, within legal means, and using proportionate and discriminating weapons and tactics…. However, … pick up a book by almost any just war thinker in philosophy, theology, or the social sciences, and the concept is missing altogether. This volume returns military necessity to just war thinking and lays out the argument for doing so. Each contributor taps into one of the many dimensions of military necessity, such as its relationship to jus ad bellum (ethics of going to war) categories (e.g. right intention), its relationship to jus in bello categories, or its application in foreign policy and military doctrine. Case studies in the book point out the practical moral dimensions of military necessity in cases from the targeted killing of terrorists to battlefield decisions that led to the use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.

I am grateful that we have, among our number, those who think, write about, and teach on this topic. I hope it will shape some our discussion on Friday.