Peter Mommsen at The Point:
The Christian case against pacifism is more convoluted, given the tension with the New Testament and early tradition. Yet in essence, it’s an appeal to common sense. While Jesus’s teachings may guide private life, this view holds, to apply them to public life is grossly irresponsible, since that would prevent Christians from defending the innocent or serving the state. After its legalization by Constantine in 313 CE, Christianity accepted a role in maintaining social order in the Roman Empire. Accordingly, bishops such as Ambrose and Augustine allowed Christians to participate in just wars and capital punishment. (They maintained the church’s ban on gladiatorial games, abortion and infanticide.) These churchmen didn’t deny Jesus’s teachings—they just made room for exceptions. To this end, they drew creatively on the Old Testament and philosophers like Cicero, or expanded on the apostle Paul’s dictum that government is ordained by God. Augustine, for example, reasoned that a soldier who slays on his superior’s orders doesn’t violate the prohibition on killing because he “does not himself ‘kill’—he is an instrument, a sword in its user’s hand.” Augustine thus offered Christians the kind of work-around that would enable them to punish and wage war with a good conscience.
more here.
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