Confederate dead at Antietam

People, especially Southerners, argue amongst themselves over the essential commonality of the “War of Yankee Aggression” (a.k.a. “The Late Unpleasantness” or the “American Civil War”). Some deny that the war was about slavery whilst others declare slavery the reason for the war.

Okay, let’s look at this thing…

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Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944

The United States expended over $341 billion throughout World War II, including $50 billion in Lend-Lease supplies sent to Great Britain ($31 billion), the Soviet Union, China, and 35 other nations. This country suffered an estimated 400,000 casualties, including over 290,000 combat deaths. World-wide, the human cost of the war has been estimated at 50,000,000, including those murdered in the Holocaust. Total expenditures by belligerents have been estimated at $1 trillion, in 1945 dollars.

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The Continental Congress in Philadelphia

Was our American Revolution a Just War?

King George III, his officers, Parliament, and Colonial loyalists considered the Revolution an illegal insurrection, a rebellion against their legitimate government. The leaders of the Revolution considered their acts justified and the war a just action against an illegal tyranny. So, was that war just, in the classical sense?

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We often hear the phrase “just war” used in connection with, well, any war, including the war on terror in which we are currently engaged. Some may be aware of the theological implications of the words, “just war,” but many, I suspect, are not. Perhaps we should take a few moments to look at how war has been justified in Christian theology for centuries, and how a war can be considered “just.” First, what do we mean by the use of the adjective, just?

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