Guidelines for Justifiable Warfare (Acts of Synod 1982, pp. 104-5)

I. The Just War

1. It is, in the Christian view, the task and responsibility of the state to establish and maintain a just political order and to secure in law the religious, social, and economic freedoms which its citizens require for meeting their obligations to “God and neighbor.

2. It is recognized by the church that sin, expressing itself in lawlessness, continuously threatens the established political order and the freedoms it guarantees.

3. The church believes that when this lawlessness is armed and directed violently against the state, the state is authorized by God himself to counter this attack through the use of such force as will render the attack inoperative, and enable the state to perform its function to preserve justice and freedom within society.

4. The Christian church in articulating the ideal of peace proclaimed by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, may not so construe that ideal as to deprive the state in principle of the sword given to it for the defense of order and freedom. There can, therefore, be no objection a priori to the existence of a military establishment or to the manufacture and strategic disposition of weapons calculated to deter the lawless.

5. The state is authorized to counter with force not only the armed lawlessness of its own citizens, but also that of hostile sates bent on conquest and enslavement. It may engage both in police action against its recalcitrant citizens and in military action against foreign states forcibly disturbing the order of justice in which human freedoms are secured.

II. Just War Implications

6. A just war, as traditionally understood and endorsed by the Christian church, is a war the object of which is not utterly to destroy but effectually to deter the lawless; the concrete aim of a just war is not the annihilation but the overpowering of the enemy state and the consequent assignment to it of its rightful place in the family of nations.

7. In the Christian view the ultimate purpose of a just war is the establishment of a lasting peace upon the foundation of justice. Its final end is the achievement of a righteous and stable political order within which concrete human values are preserved and a well-ordered human society can flourish.

8. No war may be considered just which, while visiting destruction upon all that is bad, destroys every living human witness to that which is good; no war can be considered an allowable remedy for evil which destroys, together with this evil, all or almost all of history’s accumulated goods; no war can be considered a fit political instrument for the establishment of peace which brings no peace but the peace of death.

9. Although a just war is in principle thinkable, and in the past was concretely possible, it is at least questionable whether, in view of the destructive power of modern weapons, it can any longer become actual. Any war which would scorch the earth, destroy all or the major part of the technical, cultural, and spiritual treasures of mankind, and annihilate the human race, or leave alive only a maimed and wounded fragment of it, lies outside the traditional concept of a just war and must be judged morally impermissible.

III. Exhortation

10. The church recognizes that there exists in themonuclear weapons and missiles a destructive power too frightful to contemplate and too sinister to tolerate. Considering the extreme difficulty, if not the impossibility, of limiting nuclear weapons if war should break out, the church enjoins upon the nations of the world their duty to establish a framework of mutual agreement to scrap these weapons, and to do so without delay under international surveillance.

11. The church recognizes that the decision to do this will not be taken if men and nations are not prompted thereto by the Spirit of God. It therefore calls upon all its members to pray for the initiation, continuation, and success of disarmament discussions, and indeed for the establishment of peace with justice.

12. Because prayer is neither sincere nor effectual when not expressive of personal commitment and when not accompanied by appropriate deeds, the church calls upon its members to work for peace in every honorable way and to support with Christian judgment, charity, and vigor the existing agencies and institutions, national and international, which have been established to secure justice, understanding, and cooperation among nations and peoples.

13. Because no work is maximally effective which is not directed by understanding, the church calls upon its members who are theologians, philosophers, and scientists, and upon its members who are pastors, teachers, and other leaders to provide instruction and guidance in matters of national and international concern in order that through the relevant proclamation of the Word and through the disciplined judgment and enlightened activity of its members the church may also in this area be in truth “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world.”