War Peace and Reconciliation: A Theological Inquiry

War Peace and Reconciliation invites Christians and the churches into a conversation over how to think about war from a standpoint in faith. It asks how reconciliation which is central to Christian life and doctrine can engage the realities of war without surrendering its fundamental affirmations. It defines these realities politically by discussing the meanings of power peace as a particular organization of power and the international system. The study of war and politics is unavoidable as is the engagement with reconciliation because all human existence and activity exist in the context of the gracious work of God to renew and reconcile the fallen creation. The inquiry is theocentric and christocentric. It culminates in a call to the churches to examine all their practices in the light of this perspective. Theodore Webers War Peace and Reconciliation is a major treatise in theological ethics. We should reflect about war he argues within a theology of Gods reconciling work in Jesus Christ. He seeks to show that even war with all its brutality and destruction is an arena of Gods--and human--reconciliation. Anyone who plans to speak about ethics and war should study this book with care. --Joseph L. Allen Professor Emeritus of Ethics Perkins School of Theology Southern Methodist University Informed by Niebuhrs political realism but rooted in a theology of reconciliation Weber offers an important alternative to the most common ways of thinking about war in Christian thought. Equally important and critical to the theology of reconciliation is his analysis of peace as an organization of power and of a just society as one in which people have the freedom to be vulnerable. Incisively argued and deeply probing this book is indispensable for all Christian thinking about conflict power justice and peace in the emerging international order. --Jon Gunnemann Professor of Social Ethics Emeritus Emory University Weber has done the Church an invaluable service in providing a distinctively Christian approach to the understanding of the uses of power among nations often resulting in war. . . . Webers acute analysis and theocentric emphasis offer a much needed corrective to an unengaged pacifism or an engaged but graceless realism. --James Laney President Emeritus Emory University former Ambassador to South Korea Theodore R. Weber is Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics at Emory University and a former president of the Society of Christian Ethics in the United States and Canada. A pastor preacher teacher he is author of Politics in the Order of Creation: Transforming Wesleyan Political Ethics and of other books and articles. He and his wife Mudie live in Atlanta Georgia.