Today in New Zealand the date is the 11th of September, this date marks the anniversary of a terrible crime, an event where planes were used to increate and kill thousands of innocent civilians in order to strike terror into the heart of the local population.

Those reading this will suspect that I am talking of the attack on the world trade towers in 2001. I am not. The event I refer to occurred in September 11th 1944 the bombing of Darmstadt. This was one of several bombing raids performed by the allies against German occupied Europe. What’s less well known was that Churchill under pressure from his ally Stalin, perhaps the greatest mass murderer in history, authorized the deliberate area bombing of civilian cities. Defenders of these actions argued it was necessary to destroy the morale of the German people. The raid on Darmstadt created a fire storm 1 mile high. The roaring firestorm so terrified the population that most people stayed in their bomb shelters leading to them dying of suffocation. In his fascinating monograph Humanity Jonathan Glover notes that over 12000 people died in this raid. Carolin Schaffer a survivor of the raid tells how she and her children were forced to flee through piles of corpses. She covered her children’s eyes for fear that the images would traumatize them for life.

Darmstard was only one of many area bombings performed by the allies. A year earlier between 24 July and 3 of August the city of Hamburg was repeatedly attacked. On the night of the 27th the bombings created a firestorm with temperatures up to 800 degrees. Roads melted and fleeing civilians found their feet stuck in molten tar and asphalt while they were burnt alive. Glover’s account contains disturbing accounts from eyewitnesses, stories of charred women and children, with brains tumbling onto the ground. The firestorm of the 27th killed 40,000 people. Similar things can be said about the fire bombing of Dresden in 1945 which killed 30,000.

Many in the west forget do not know about these events. I talk to well meaning sincere students all the time who know all about the atrocities of Hitler and have no idea that Churchill supported terrorism moreover often when this is pointed out they do not care. After all he was fighting Hitler.

I highlight these events not to engage in the specious reasoning of anti war activists. The invalid tu quoque which states that because the west has engaged in terrorism of this sort in the past that some how means they are mistaken to condemn it now. Such arguments seem to suggest that because we did not do the right thing in the past we should not do it now. Nor do I wish to engage in the facile “Bush is a hypocrite” argument; such reasoning displays a shallow understanding of ethical argument, one that mistakes attacking against a persons character with actually offering an argument against the proposition asserted by the person. Any first year critical thinking or logic class would clear these issues up; the fact that educated University students seriously put them forward is a shame to our education system.

I highlight to say simply this terrorism in all its forms should be condemned. The Christian Just war theory condemns deliberately targeting and killing non combatants in war. It bases this on the sixth commandment “you shall not kill” but notes, following Augustine, that when this commandment is read in it's context it admits of two specified exceptions; killing an aggressor to defend of the innocent from his attack, and killing a person justly sentenced for a capital crime. The commandment is issued to all human beings. It does not say it’s wrong for the US to do this but Sunni Muslims who do it against America are freedom fighters. It does not say that we should condemn Israel when (and if) they deliberately attack civilians but then agree to listen and hear the complaints of Palestinians when they blow up Israeli women and children and encourage their teenagers to do so. It does not say that we should revile the CIA for dubious actions they have engaged in and yet praise terrorist organizations like Nelson Mandela’s ANC. All forms of terrorism should be condemned. All people, including all governments, are required to obey Gods law.

The leftwing forces of “peace” and “tolerance” in our country reject Gods law and find the idea that Governments are under God as absurd. In popular discourse they replace Gods law with the most bizarre unprincipled stance on violence. They say the state should never kill when a person has been found guilty of serial murder. But they slaughter by the thousands innocent children for social, economic reasons in state hospitals at taxpayer funds. They tell us the US should not intervene in Iraq to bring down a brutal dictator and stop his slaughter of thousands of innocent people. Yet they support military intervention in the Solomon Islands to stop riots. It’s wrong to correct disobedient children with force, but they then exhort thousands of dollars of tax payer money out of adults, by threatening force and violence for any social cause they deem worthy of support. This leads to the absurd situation where Journalists on TV tell us that Bush and other American conservatives are the equivalent of Bin Laden and the Taliban. As though a country that executes serial murderers is the same as one that executes women for not wearing a Burka. As though condemning pornographic filth is the same as banning TVs and kites. Their real ethic is clear; violence is good when used by us for causes we like by regimes who oppose those we hate. It should not be used against murderers only innocent tax payers, it should not be used against dictators only against those dictators which the UN ( which is composed of dictators) like. A plane that attacks a military target illegally located within a civilian area and which inevitably but unintentionally hits a civilians ( after ringing the civilians and telling them to leave) is a terrorist because the person who did it is a Jew and supported by the US. However a terrorist who fights apartheid is a hero and Muslim Jihadists they are simply venting understandable frustration at western colonialism.

This is one of the reasons people do not know about Darmstadt, because the Nazis were evil racists, they are the figure the left use to label any person they don’t like, so no one cares about the Germans. People confidently forget or excuse the atrocities committed upon german civilians by the allies. They also minimize the even worse social polices and massacres of Stalin our ally in the war. What is needed is not the pragmatic utilitarianism of the left. But a consistent stance grounded in the law of God. Violence is wrong when intentionally wielded against innocent people. However, to protect the innocent, governments must wield it against criminals and those who engage in aggression against the innocent. This applies domestically and internationally. I say hunt Bin Laden down kill him. Destroy terrorists everywhere and anywhere when they threaten us. Refuse to give in to them or negotiate with them until they denounce terrorism. Execute the evil people who rape and kill children here at home. Arm the police with tasers and when a criminal is threatening the innocent use them. However let those of us who are innocent, whether civilians in other countries or non criminals at home, use our life liberty and property as we please. Stop restricting our liberty appropriating our property and threatening us with incarceration us as means to achieve your social ends. Stop killing unborn children by the thousands to further the women’s revolution while selectively condemning “non violence” and prattling about peace when those who threaten the innocent us are challenged by governments doing the job God instituted them to do. Show us you actually have some moral discernment and can tell the difference between guilt and innocence, aggression and non aggression.

Black is not white and your continual claiming it is does not make it so.

I teach at a theological college. This morning I was on campus checking my mail box when a theological discussion erupted around me. The students were discussing the question of pre-millennial eschatology, specifically whether the Temple needs to be rebuilt in Jerusalem and the levitical priesthood restored before Christ’s Pre-millennial return. I am not a Pre-millennialist and hence agreed to some extent with what the students were saying, however, I found the arguments they gave to be very superficial, it was of the “this view is true because it pleases certain oppressed peoples and makes God look nice” variety. Next, however, I heard a statement that really got my back up.

“Oh I don’t care about any of that, I know Jesus comes back and that’s all that matters, who or under what circumstances, who cares”

At this point, I joined in the conversation pointing out that a Mosque currently stands where the temple would need to be rebuilt. I suggested that demolishing an Islamic holy site and building a Temple there could in fact lead to war and the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. I also noted that how one approaches brokering peace in this part of the world could depend on a correct answer to this question, hence, it had some important practical significance. This point, however, rolled of my interlocutress’s back.

“Oh well, as long as Christ comes back, I don’t care about what the correct theology is.”

The fervour of my response shocked even me, I asked a direct question.

“Why are you here?”

The student looked puzzled.

“Why are you at a theological college if you don’t care what the scriptures teach? If what is the truth of the matter means nothing to you as long as you attain salvation? Why come to college and study the scriptures if ultimately you have no desire to learn what they say? Go home and stop wasting everyone’s time.”

The student said to me,

“I am not required to be able to answer those questions.”

I responded,

“Yes you are, you are a Theology student that’s an important vocation. You should be informed about the questions and debates that occur in Eschatology and you should be attempting to understand what the truth is, that’s why you are here.”

The student informed me that I was rude and she did not want to discuss the matter further. I went home thinking, was I out of line here?

One thing that immediately sprang to mind was the fact that this student apparently refuses to listen to messages she finds rude. While presentation is important, shouldn’t the real question be whether what I said was true? Sometimes the truth is offensive and unpleasant.

But that still leaves the question was I out of line? am I out of line in my attitude here?

I do not think I am although admittedly I may have been too blunt; I am not always as sensitive as I should be. Years of being abused and derided as an ignorant fundamentalist moron tends to toughen ones skin and harden you a bit. It also customises you to debate that is less than tactful and polite and it is hard to re-contextualise this debate style in nicer, politer company.

My manner of presentation aside, I think I am right to be concerned. One of the biggest problems of contemporary evangelicalism is the lazy, superficial attitude that I heard expressed in this discussion. God gave us minds, he revealed us truth through the scriptures and he commands us to grow in an understanding of him. Evangelicals actually believe in truth. Understanding God and his ways is one of the greatest mysteries of the universe and the answers matter deeply, they relate to the deepest existential questions we all face.

The attitude that suggests that as long as “I am saved” then wrestling with these answers, caring about what is true and developing our understanding of the whole counsel of God is unimportant reflects a self-centred mindset for which I find it hard to have any thing but contempt. As a Theologian I believe it is my duty to try and understand these issues and to offer credible answers to life’s questions. Of course I am aware that I could be wrong and need to be open to that possibility. I am also aware that on some issues I do not know the answer, either because I find the debate inconclusive or I lack knowledge of certain issues necessary for resolving the issue. However, I do not think that agnosticism or humility concerning the answers to such questions should be grounded in an “I don’t know the facts, I do not understand the issue and I do not want to because I do not care” attitude.

Working at a theological college often depresses me because I am frequently exposed to this mind numbing, anti-intellectual superficiality and a culture of people who think that such mediocrity is “spiritual”. It is like they really believe that God is impressed with bumper stickers saying “Jesus loves you” or “eternity smoking or non-smoking?” and see this as an effective ambassadorship of his message.

Evangelicals need to wake up to the fact that we are a joke in contemporary NZ society. I have worked in secular universities for several years and watched as mind numbing, clichéd responses to serious questions is cheered on as effective by glorified youth groups. At the same time the surrounding culture gets a clear message that Christians are dingbats who are simply clueless. Stereotypes that enlightenment thinking has drummed into a generation about faith being irrational are simply reinforced.

Sadly I have also found that some times these same hostile sceptics often are very interested in the questions evangelicals address. They will talk and listen for hours to a sensible theologically informed answer and are genuinely interested in truth and issues to do with God and Morality. The problem is that frequently it is us who are not. We have reduced the gospel not to truth but to a pragmatic “it works and enhances my life” message. Evangelism looks uncannily like those tedious Chuck Norris infomercials telling us to “buy a total gym and we too can get a trim body” or the raving Anthony Robbins ads “I bought his tapes and now I am successful; it can work for you too!” The problem is that in a corrupt world falsehood sometimes works and as martyrs world wide can attest, truth can get you tortured and killed.

Augustine of Hippo coined a famous motto which became a guide to later Christian scholasticism, this was the motto of “Faith seeking understanding.” He held that we should accept the message of the gospel by faith, but that one should utilise reason to understand this Gospel, to explore its implications, to answer objections and to develop an informed application of its message to various issues.

For centuries Theologians followed this method, to read Augustine or Aquinas, Calvin, Ockham, Grotius or the Puritans or even contemporary writers like Alvin Plantinga is to catch a vision of God and his world that is richly profound and both existentially and intellectually satisfying. One finds oneself drawn into the conversation in an attempt to wrestle with them, critically engaging ones mind in the contemplation of the greatest being of all, God. One gains ownership of one's faith and is driven to a hunger to learn more of God out of devotion to him.

I was forced to read writers like this when I was faced with challenges to my faith that my Church could not answer and the experience was transforming but I have never been able to fit into the New Zealand evangelical church ever since. Exposure to the real thing inevitably makes the mind numbing dosage of clichés, slogans, pithy pat wit, the “Jesus loves me, he works, ignore the rest” view of mature spirituality difficult to tolerate. I find this view to be one of the biggest barriers to the Gospel and subsequent social transformation in New Zealand today. Consequently, I find myself adopting an almost zero tolerance attitude towards it. God is not impressed by lazy minds who run from a challenge and hide in the comfort of mutually affirming pot luck dinners while the rest of the world goes to hell. And its time the evangelical world stopped thinking this was acceptable.

I recently spoke to a respected Christian leader who speaks in numerous theological colleges in NZ and he informed me that he has had to dumb his message down in order to survive. That speaks volumes; normally academics get promoted for intellectual rigor and depth but it is a sad state of affairs when excellence in understanding God is a liability and superficially an asset. If this is the way we promote and educate Christian leaders then may God help New Zealand Society.

Today I returned from a trip to Sydney. As I exited customs and headed for my taxi I kept feeling like I had missed something, some step in security - maybe I had taken a wrong turn?

You see when I flew to Australia I had to fill in a card answering a number of questions about what I was bringing into the country. You know the ones, you just mindlessly fill them in and get on with your trip. This time though the questions around drugs were particularly prominent for me as I had brought with me some prescription pain killers for my neck (hurt it blowdrying my hair recently - long story) and I realised I had to declare them which was a bit of a pain as I ended up getting separated from my colleagues.

On the way home I wondered if I should just not declare them so as to not risk the separation thing again but resolved to do the right thing. Imagine my surprise on filling in the NZ entry card, as I ticked each box and came to the end having answered questions about mud and wood items and fruit only to find that there was no question about drugs at all!

Surely they must ask me in person as I go through customs... I listened intently for my opportunity to confess to the drugs in my handbag, "No, I don't have any fruit in my hand bag, just some eclipse mints and a biscuit I didn't eat on the plane." I was waived on and the next thing I knew I was outside heading for my taxi.

The Aussies want to know about your criminal convictions and the drugs you might be carrying, the US wants to know both of the above and your Nazi party affiliations but all NZ cares about is whether you are carrying any fruit!

I found this last night, I wrote it at the beginning of the US invasion in 2003 at that time I was opposed to the invasion of Iraq and was considering joining the anti-war movement in Dunedin. I posted it up on a newsgroup to get some answers from peace activists. I have edited it slightly and incorporated some of the responses I made to objections in the ensuing discussion into the main text.My views on permissibility the invasion have since changed. However I stand by what I said here:

I was sitting down last night watching the News and pondering whether the doctrine of a Just War ruled out a military intervention by the US in Iraq. While I was doing this an idea came to me. I was struck by the fact that no one has asked whether the Doctrine would justify Iraq defending themselves against the US invasion. It seems odd that no one has asked this. There is after all two sides to a conflict and both sides are required to act according to Gods law. Why were people predominately concerned with the actions of only one of the belligerents? It is almost as if we people think that democratic nations have a duty to refrain from unjust belligerency, dictatorships do not. I submit that this is absurd.

Upon reflection I came to the conclusion that the just war doctrine would not permit Iraq to engage in a defensive war against the US. Just war doctrine states that a war to be lawfully prosecuted must meet 6 requirements 1) it must be fought for a just cause with just aims 2) it must be prosecuted by someone with the lawful authority to do so 3), It must be a last resort 4) one must have a reasonable chance of success in prosecuting these aims 5) The cost one incurs by going to war must not be greater than the evil one is trying to prevent and 6) only force must be used proportionate and discriminate ( aimed only at non combatants) force should be utilized in prosecuting the war.

I will examine each of these criteria in turn.

1) The cause and aim is to prevent a brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein, being removed from power this is hardly a just cause.

Some deny this, they suggest that Iraq is defending it’s oil reserves from foreign annexation. I demur for three reasons

First, “the no blood for oil” argument is a bad one. The aim of the US is to topple the regime, of course Oil could be the motive (just as it could be the motive of Frances decision to veto). But even if it was all it shows is that the US has bad motives. It does not show their actions are unjust. Consider a person can give to charity because he wants others to be impressed by his piety, this would be a bad motive but it does not follow that giving to charity is wrong, or that he should not give to charity. It simply tells us about his character the no blood for oil argument expresses a logical fallacy, attacking a person’s character not their reasons.

Second, Saddam’s aim is not to prevent the US getting Oil. To see this simply ask whether Saddam would settle for a situation where his regime fell, his people liberated but Iraq kept the Oil. Would he stop fighting and surrender on such terms NO. Which shows his aim is self preservation not protecting people from getting oil?

Third even if protection of Oil reserves was Saddam’s aim (which it is not) the question could still be raised over whether this is a just cause. Is maintaining possession of Oil and money is a just cause for war, normally one does not have aright to kill to defend money. If America is not permitted to shed blood for oil why is Iraq?

2) Holds only if one grants that a dictator who ceased power by force and stays in power largely by rigged votes is the legitimate ruler of Iraq. notice the words "if" here I was cautious because I am tempted to think that a de facto regime can be legitimate even if dictatorial, that does not mean that everything the regime did is legitimate. We recognize China's government for example and various others.

The standard response I get to this is that Bush rigged the election in Florida and so does not have lawful authority either. This is not an adequate response. My suggestion is that Saddam lacks lawful authority to wage war. Saying that Bush has no such authority does not address this, in fact it tends to confirm it. If Bush can't wage war because he was not really elected then neither can Saddam why is it acceptable for dictators to engage in wars and yet not unelected leaders of free countries?

3) Clearly does not hold, Saddam could have taken numerous reasonable non violent actions to prevent invasion. He could have stopped oppressing his people. He could have gone into exile. Saddam could have stepped down; he could have allowed his people to have free democratic elections and reformed the regime so that it upheld justice and human rights. These are all perfectly reasonable things that he had a duty to do any way and they would have averted war. Why is the US is being condemned for not exhausting all non violent solutions when Saddam did not either. You can't have it both ways, a rule that says dictators don't need to find peaceful alternatives but free countries do.

4) Does not hold, it is not likely that Saddam can defeat the coalition in a war, he could not beat Iran, was beaten soundly by the US last time and has a weaker army this time.

[note: one response I got to this point was that I was completely brainless if I thought this. I was told that Saddam’s forces would drive the US advance back, another respondent said the Arab world would unite and defeat the US as a response to the invasion. I have not put my responses to this here. I don’t think I need to…]

5) Does not hold the "evil" being prevent is the toppling of a brutal dictatorship and so is not an evil at all. Consequently the costs incurred by the Iraqi people by fighting the coalition are not outweighed by a positive good.

The response I get to this claim is that Saddam is no more of a dictator than George W Bush who signed Bush has signed over 200 death warrants [ Bush is the former governor of a death penalty state see here ]. Again this is beside the point I have not argued that the US or Bush are fighting a just war, I merely said Iraq is fighting an unjust one. Even if one grants that Bush's actions are problematic it does not mean that Saddam’s are not. Taken at face value this argument confirms my claim. I take it that people who make this argument consider these actions by Bush to be wrong if so then Saddam doing the same thing is wrong and I assure you he has executed more than 200 people.

I am surprised anyone takes this argument seriously. There is a world of difference between executing people found guilty by due process of committing first degree murder which is what happens in the US. and executing women and children without trial, often for trivial reasons, or for actions which are not crimes ( such as criticizing the government or being a Kurd).There is also a difference between a lethal injection and being tortured to death in an Iraqi torture chamber. I am at a loss to understand why some who oppose the war cannot draw such basic and obvious distinctions. Is as though any killing by the US, no matter what the circumstances, is murder but when the same action is done by Iraq it’s excusable.

6) Saddam is does not have a track record of using force discriminately. He has a history of massacring civilians. His defenders tend also to disrespect non combatant immunity by a) housing military targets in close proximity to civilian centers and hence effectively using civilians as shields b) executing POW's and disrespecting their rights, c) disguising troops as civilians.

[One peace activist responded to this point by saying that my claim Saddam did these things was simply my biased opinion and hence worthless. He appeared to maintain that Saddam was a democratically elected popular leader. I kid you not]

So Iraq fails on nearly every criterion, except perhaps 2). In fact I am inclined to think that even if the US invasion is unjust it meets more of the criteria for a just war than Iraq’s defense does, making the American invasion less morally problematic than the Iraqi's defense . This means in fact that Saddam had a to not defend himself against the attack. If he had done this the US would not have used force and nearly every adverse effect associated with the war that people are concerned about would not have happened. Saddam therefore is as much responsible (perhaps more so) for whatever happens as the US is. His derelection of the duty to not engage in an unjust wars has lead to these things coming about

These observations lead me to question the tactics and strategy of the Peace movement. This movement is advocating that the U.S withdraw because they are fighting an unjust war. It states that because the US are prosecuting such a war there should be demonstrations against the US. The question needs to be asked are governments allowed to prosecute unjust wars, if the answer is yes then the peace movement has no case , because Bush is not doing anything wrong, if the answer is No then it follows that Iraq also has a duty to refrain from fighting this war and that Iraq has a duty to cease fighting and withdraw its defenses from Bagdad. The peace movement should be picketing Iraq's decision to fight, burning Iraqi flags demanding that Saddam step down, storming Iraqs embassies etc. We should see hundreds of thousands of people marching denouncing Iraq. But we do not.

Consider it this way. The war can be stopped in two ways either by the US ceasing to invade or by Iraq ceasing to defend, It seems to me that putting pressure on Iraq to stop fighting is in fact preferable to demanding a US withdraw. For three reasons first because even if one grants the unjust nature of both wars I suspect that the US will conform to the model of a just war better than Iraq does. Second, because Iraq withdrawing and the US liberating Iraqi people from tyranny without violence is surely a better outcome than the US withdrawing and liberated people being crushed with violence, reprisals etc And Third because if it did this it would also gain support of those who support the US invasion and hence represent a broader base of people and gain more popular support.

Why then is the peace movement most of its efforts on denouncing the coalition? If the peace movement wants to credibly pass itself of as concerned with justice for the people of Iraq rather than a simply a movement that is committed to anti Americanism while turning a blind eye to dictatorships It should focus most of its efforts protesting the actions of the Iraqi leadership. It should call for the Iraqi leadership to put down its weapons and cease fighting an unjust war. Until it does many people even those who have doubts about the justice of Americas actions will remain skeptical of its goals. If not morally appalled at its selective blindness and lack of concern for the Iraq people.

RELATED POSTS:
More on Iraq and the Just War Theory

Craig Young is shocked by statistics about “bare backing” being prevalent in the Gay community. Bare backing in case you don’t know is the name Craig gives to un-protected anal sex. Young is shocked because it suggests there exists a “parallel world where Paul Cameron tells the truth.”

To understand this you need to understand something of Craig’s methods. Many critics of homosexual conduct have been for some time citing studies and evidence which suggests that homosexual conduct, as typically engaged, in is dangerous. Craig Young’s standard response has been ad hominem; he notes that one source sometimes cited in support of these claims is Paul Cameron and, according to Craig, Cameron was kicked out of the American Psychological Association for falsifying one of his studies. Craig fails to see that this is not an adequate rebuttal. First, even if Cameron’s work lacks credibility he is often only one of many sources these authors use. Contrary to what Craig seems to think you do not refute numerous studies by showing that one of them is false. Second, the fact that Cameron was kicked out of an organization for falsifying his research in a particular a study does not mean that every study he wrote or authored was shonky or bad.

Despite his initial shock at discovering that merely attacking the character of one scholar does not establish the falsity of a thesis. Craig attempts a predictable save. The prevalence of unsafe sex amongst homosexual men is actually the fault of evangelical Christians not of the bare backers who actually do it.

[T]he US Christian Right has had some dark successes in curtailing LGBT rights and mainstream HIV/AIDS prevention programmes. This has meant that the US LGBT communities are far more ghettoised than most other international LGBT communities, so it tolerates distorted antisocial behaviours that are one response to segregation from the rest of one's society. What else could one call the cowboy bareback DVD producers that prey on young gay men barely past the age of consent that appear to be the backbone of barebacking?

Craig here argues as follows: dangerous sexual practises are a response to segregation from society and segregation from society is the result of moral condemnation from Christians in that society. Ergo these Christians are responsible for the dangerous practises. Now something like this argument is common, like many common liberal arguments I reject it. Here is why:

This argument suggests that people (in this case certain Christians) are responsible not just for the foreseeable causal consquences of their actions. But also for other peoples free responses to these actions (or at least such responses which one can be expected to predict) Young suggests that because it’s foreseeable some people choose to respond to Christian condemnation of homosexual conduct by forming a segregated culture, and its foreseeable that this culture will respond to segregation by condoning and engaging in “anti social behaviour”. It follows Christians are responsible for the behaviour.

I think this understanding of scope of moral culpability is false. Consider the following example from Augustine. Suppose a man approaches a woman and tells her that he will kill himself if she refuses to have sex with him. Does that mean that she is a murderer if she refuses?[1] Her refusal would not constitute homicide even though his death is a foreseeable result of her choice. Although she foresaw his or her death, she did not cause it. It was caused by the free decision of the tempter to commit suicide.

In an excellent article, Alan Donagan notes that historically Christian and Jewish casuistry agrees with Augustine on this point. Christian ethicists typically…

limit an action’s effects, and a fortiori what its agent intends to bring about in doing it, to those that follow from it in course of nature and the ordinary operation of social institutions, and not from the free reactions of others to it.
(Thus actions in the ordinary course of business, for example, those of postal officers in delivering a letter that has been mailed, are not counted as free reactions.) The principle on which they do is that a free reaction to an action, is a ‘new action’ (‘novus actus’), the effects of which are their effects, and not those of the action to which they are reactions.[2] [Emphasis added]

If we apply this point to Craig’s analysis his argument falls down. Christians who condemn homosexual conduct do not cause people to engage in bare backing. In fact by condemning homosexual conduct they are explicitly telling them not to engage in it. If a person does it anyway, then they doing so in defiance of their will and hence without their consent consequently any negative consequences that follow are the responsibility of the “bare backer” not the person opposed to bare backing.

I think the same line of argument addresses Craig’s second argument,

And how could the blanket censorship of targeted adolescent gay HIV/AIDS prevention education not have resulted in a situation where there are young men who see nothing wrong in having unsafe sex- possibly because they've been isolated from metropolitan gay communities where they would have gotten that message?

Putting to one side Young’s mistaken definition of censorship, here the same problem arises. The Christian expresses a volition that people not engage in homosexual behavior they believe that such behavior is wrong. Because they believe this they also refuse to help people engage in such conduct, that would make them complict in wrongdoing. A group of adolescents refuse to listen and do it anyway as a result they die. Craig suggests that this means that Christians are responsible for these deaths. This follows only if people are responsible for and culpable for the foreseeable actions of other people even when these other people are acting contrary to their expressed desire and as I argued above this is false.

There is something even worse about this line of argument however: if it were true it would mean that any person can require me to assist them in any behavior they wish merely by threatening to do something worse if I do not. Such a principle essentially sanctions black mail and creates an obligation to collaborate in any wrong no matter how grave in response to a threat to a third party. Even worse, if the blackmailers carry out the threat they make us responsible what happens and not them. I can help but think this is a terrible distortion of ethical analysis

I think it’s clear then that Craig’s analysis is mistaken. I will add a final note: Barebacking is an activity that occurs between consenting adults. Both parties agree to engage in causal unprotected anal sex. Now people like Craig have been arguing for some time that homosexual sex is permissible, precisely because it’s engaged in by consenting adults. Denials of this principle have been denounced by Craig’s news group Gaynz as bigoted, oppressive etc. Hence it’s hard to see how they can consistently oppose barebacking. Of course they may believe that barebackers need to be informed of the dangers of the practice. Such things as the fact that their partner is likely to have had hundreds of previous ones, that there are dangers associated with anal sex etc. The problem is that Craig and Gaynz have decried claims like this as false, as scaremongering etc. So I guess the question we need to put to Craig is this. If people who engage in same sex behavior are typically not promiscuous but enjoy relationships as stable as their heterosexual counterparts. If homosexual sex is not dangerous and there is nothing wrong with any sexual activity between consenting adults. What’s wrong with bare backing?

Craig should stop being bigoted and be celebrating the sexual diversity that exists within his own community. The fact he is not celebrating shows that he cannot consistently live with the ideology he expounds.

[1] Augustine, On Lying, 9.
[2] Alan Donagan, “Moral Absolutism and the Double-Effect Exception: Reflections on Who Is Entitled to Double-Effect?” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 16 (1991): 498.

An interesting discussion of Islam has been occurring at Kiwiblog. Up until now I have merely chipped in to correct inaccurate claims about Christian beliefs and practices. However, for what its worth I’ll add my two cents worth here.

Here is what I think the issues are.

We are familiar with Christian teachings on the morality of violence. The just war theory of Augustine, Aquinas, Gratian, Vitoria, Calvin, Luther and Grotius have been pretty much codified into international law and things like the Geneva accords. They are now at least held up as the correct rules ( even if they are not always followed in practice) by liberal democratic societies. We are also familiar with various other ideas which come from Christianity the idea that individuals have inalienable rights which the state cannot transgress. Those non believers should be tolerated. That Government should be limited. That Church and state are separate institutions with degrees of autonomy from each other. That the state should be concerned with the temporal welfare of its citizens and not their welfare in the life to come. While it’s fashionable for people to attribute to these things to the enlightenment, in reality, much of this in is found in Medieval Theology and even in earlier writers like the Church fathers. The basic premises of course come from the scriptures.

Now when we confront Islam we confront (a) a religion we know less about (b) a religion which historically has threatened parts of Europe with invasion and hence has been feared and (c) whose high profile practitioners seem to have very different understandings of these things. Some of them appear to believe direct killing of non combatants is permissible and they seem to not respect the Geneva accords. They appear to have more absolute governments. Have clerics exercising vetoing legislation and they seem to threaten people with death if they don’t convert etc.

I guess the question is this: does this historically feared tradition have the same moral teachings about these things Christianity does? And if it does not what does that mean for religious tolerance? How far can a religion disagree with our current consensus on these types of questions before tolerance is no longer acceptable? And finally, if we tolerate it and large numbers of the population embrace this religion how will that change the cultural values and assumptions which our liberal institutions are based on?

I do not know the answers to these questions. but I think they need to be asked and debated. Not dismissed as Islamiphobia. I also think that the debate should be informed not a banding about of stereotypes and caricatures about either religion.

This latter point requires emphasis. If we see the discussion as it occurs today one side dregs up stereotypes of Muslims and attempts to quote the Koran out of context without examining the tradition, critical commentaries that responsible study of this document requires. Another side dregs up stereotypes of Christians and argues they are the *real* problem and predictably do the same thing. They argue that the scriptures support rape, torturing heretics we are told. Any debate on the question of religious tolerance which relies on slander, ignorance and prejudice towards religious minorities scares me. The alternative to tolerance is supression; which involves violence. If it comes to that then lets make sure we have been informed enough to make the right decision.

I would also add that these questions are not new. Medieval Theologians like Aquinas supported religious tolerance for Jews and Muslims but and not for Heretics. This is because he perceived heretics to threaten the institutions of society whereas other monotheistic minorities did not. Latter, John Locke suggested that religious dissenters (what Aquinas would have called Christian heretics) should be tolerated provided they did not challenge the moral values essential to a free and just society. Locke advocated suppressing Christian groups that taught contracts could not be kept with heretics because that would undermine the co-operation needed to maintain a free and just society. He also supported the suppression of atheists because he felt belief in a moral law giver was a necessary foundation for such a society. Some contemporary Gay rights advocates seem to believe we should not tolerate evangelical Christianity because opposing homosexual conduct inevitably incites violence. Or is opposed to certain understandings of equality which they think justice requires. Libertarians draw the line at aggression, because they believe freedom needs to be based on everyone refraining from the initiation of force.

The irony of this, of course, is that many of defenders of one position view the others as being opposed to tolerance. As though tolerance did not come in degrees. Everyone is for tolerance of some religions and no one to my knowledge tolerates all religions. Because we have conducted the debate in this manner few people have been able to ask the real question : How far should tolerance extend?

Aquinas's question is still with us. When does error in Theology become serious enough for the state to step in?

Texas is about to perform it’s 400th execution since capital punishment was reinstated in 1982. Stuff has an interesting article on this entitled “Religion, Culture Behind, Texas Execution Tally”

The article suggests that outsiders find it puzzling that evangelical Christians support capital punishment. This surprise, I suggest, reflects the theological and historical ignorance of these outsiders. Historically most Christian Theologians supported capital punishment as does mainstream historical Christian tradition. I suspect the reported puzzlement often comes from facile “if you oppose abortion you must oppose capital punishment” arguments which I have critiqued previously.

Like many media accounts of religion and morality the article resorts to caricature

Like his predecessor, Governor Perry is a devout Christian, highlighting one key
factor in Texas' enthusiasm for the death penalty that many outsiders find
puzzling – the support it gets from conservative evangelical churches.
This
is in line with their emphasis on individuals taking responsibility for their
own salvation, and they also find justification in sripture.
"A lot of
evangelical Protestants not only believe that capital punishment is permissible
but that it is demanded by God. And they see sanction for that in the Old
Testament especially," said Matthew Wilson, a political scientist at Southern
Methodist University in Dallas

A lot could be said here. First there is a subtle reductio ad bushium hinited at in the first line. Second, note that when the journalist wants to gain an understanding of the scriptural and theological justification evangelicals rely on to defend capital punishment he turns not to an evangelical ethicist who supports the death penalty but to a political scientist.

Third, what is said is questionable at best. In North America many evangelicals are Dispensationalists and hence do not consider Old Testament moral norms to be binding on believers and so would not appeal to the Old Testament. Their scriptural justification is drawn from the New Testament particularly Romans 13.

Third, contrary to what the article confidently asserts evangelicals do not believe people are responsible for their own salvation. Whether they are Arminians or a Calvinists evangelicals believe that salvation is given by grace. One cannot earn it through works and hence one is not responsible for it God is. What some Christian writers ( Kant and CS Lewis) have argued is that respect for human dignity requires that punishment be retributive as opposed to therapeutic or deterrent One is justified in depriving a criminal of his right to life or liberty by punishment only if he deserves it, he has by his own voluntary actions and done something he as a rational agent knows is wrong. To subject people to treatment without their consent or to punish one person for the future crimes of others is degrading. This argument may be mistaken. But the first step to refuting it is to actually understand it, not to attribute to evangelicals views they in fact reject.

Not content with stereotyping and caricature. The article goes on to repeats the objection that that capital punishment is applied in a racist manner the article states.

blacks more likely than whites to be condemned –…Over 41 per cent of the
inmates currently on death row in Texas are black, but they account for only
about 12 per cent of the state's population.

Now there are several problems here:

First, the while its true that blacks make up only 12 of the states population its also true that in the United states around 52% of all homicides are committed by Blacks. Hence the statistic provided is misleading at best and outright deceptive at worst. To asses wether capital punishment is applied in a discriminatory manner or not the issue is not the percentage of blacks executed relative to the number of blacks in society the issue is the percentage of blacks executed relative to the number who commit homicide.

Second, this whole argument has been exploded by Ernest Van Der Haag in the Harvard Law Review Association ( 1983)

Maldistribution of any punishment among those who deserves it is irrelevant to
its justice or morality. Even if poor or black convicts guilty of capital
offenses suffer capital punishment, and other convicts equally guilty of the
same crimes do not, a more equal distribution, however desirable, would merely
be more equal. It would not be more just to the convicts under sentence of
death.

Van Der Haag’s point is this: If capital punishment is just and those executed deserve to be executed then the fact that a disproportionate number of blacks are executed can not change this. To say otherwise is essentially to argue that because some people escape justice every one should.

On the other hand if capital punishment is unjust and those executed do not deserve to die then applying capital punishment equally would not be an improvement. This is like arguing that all people should be treated unfairly because some are. The appeal to unequal distribution then is a red herring; the question is whether capital punishment is just.

Of course none of this is surprising, to expect the media to accurately report the views of religious conservatives or actually give a competent treatment of a moral or ethical issue is asking to much. That might require getting people to actually hear reasoned theological dissent to the current liberal left orthodoxy.

The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. [1] [Emphasis added]

[T]he plain fact is that none of us is a complete civil libertarian. We all believe that there is some point at which the public authorities ought to step in to limit the “self-expression” of an individual or group even where this might be seriously intended as a form of artistic expression, and even where the artistic transaction is between consenting adults. A playwright or theatrical director might, in this crazy world of ours, find someone willing to commit suicide on stage, as called for by the script. We would not allow that-any more than we would permit scenes of real physical torture on the stage, even if the victim were a willing masochist. And I know of no one, no matter how free in spirit, who argues that we ought to permit gladiatorial contests in Yankee stadium, similar to those once performed in the Coliseum of Rome-even if only consenting adults were involved.[3]

Feinberg’s response contains the disturbing suggestion that a state-regulated version of Kristol’s gory spectacles would be acceptable to the liberal … so long as some analogue of the Marquis of Queensberry rules is enforced (no bludgeoning your opponent when he is down; no slashing below the belt; no disembowelling your opponent once he surrenders), commercial combat with lethal weapons should in principle be tolerated by a liberal society. Many would consider this a reductio of the liberal position.[8]

There could be a presumption that such a person doesn’t fully understand what he is doing, or is not fully free of neurotic influences on his choice, but these hypotheses are rebuttable in principle, and in some cases that we can easily imagine, only with minor difficulty and expense rebuttable in fact. The liberals second and third responses then are the more pertinent ones.[9]

We cannot hold an image of these wretches in our minds without recoiling, for each of them alone will seem threatening or dangerous, and thousands or millions of them together will be downright terrifying. … When the bloody maiming and slaughtering of a human being is considered so thrilling and enjoyable that thousands will pay dearly to witness it, it would seem to follow that thousands are already so brutalized that there is a clear and present danger that some innocent parties (identities now unknown) will suffer at their hands.[10][Emphasis original]

The effectiveness of Hitchens’ book is also undermined by the large number of errors it contains, many so glaring that they will be picked up by even a casual reader with some knowledge of history and theology. The Gnostic gospels are not of the “same period and provenance” as the canonical Gospels, but were written several decades later; the “synoptic” Gospels are not synonymous with the “canonical” Gospels; “Q” is an assumed source for the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, but not Mark and John; the process of deciding which books to include in the New Testament was not one in which “many a life was horribly lost;” “the Vulgate” was what the Reformers were trying to get away from, not what they were attempting to translate the Bible into; Luther declared “Here I stand, I can do no other” at Worms, not Wittenberg; John Adams was not a slaveholder, nor was T.

S. Eliot a Catholic; the amount of wood from relics of the True Cross would not be sufficient if gathered together to recreate the Cross, much less create a “thousand – foot cross;” Christians have never practiced animal sacrifice, nor did the Arian heresy teach that the Father and the Son were “two incarnations of the same person;” the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption were promulgated in 1854 and 1950, not 1852 and 1951; the Lateran Treaty was signed seven years after Mussolini marched on Rome, not after he “had barely seized power;” Maryland never prohibited Protestants from holding office, and condoms are not a “necessary” condition for preventing the transmission of AIDS, or else celibates would all be infected. Given all these errors (and many more), there is no reason to accept anything Hitchens writes on his own authority, and he offers no authority other than his own for most of what he writes.

I am so sick of listening to everyone's two cents of the causes of violence in our families, in our communities, sick of it because they are complicating the simple and putting band aids on broken legs.

Responsibility for ones actions - that is what is missing in this 'whats the cause of violence' blather. Its not your skin colour, your culture, your colonisation, your government benefit - its your decision to put your fist in someone elses face that is the problem. Violence is a choice. People need to stop making excuses.

All this talk of the root cause of violence is a crock. If violence has a cause, if it is some disease then actions are not free. No matter how crappy you feel, no matter how broke you are, how colonised you might be, no matter what your skin colour, no one makes you pick up your fist, you decide to do that.

Plenty of poor, colonised, maoris on benefits do NOT beat their kids and plenty of rich, liberated, employed europeans do. The fact that there is more in one racial group than another is irrelevant. The demarcation lines need to be drawn down ethical lines and not skin colour or income type.

Some people choose to beat their kids, other people wouldn't dream of it no matter what - its a lack of character, a lack of responsibility, a lack of desire or inclination to do the right thing, to be the kind of parent that they know they should be.

I don't think many people who physically hurt the people they love actually think what they are doing is right, I would think most would know that it wasn't even if they deceive themselves at times, but they just don't care about doing the right thing enough to stop, seek help or control themselves.

The solution to this problem is that people need to develop character. They need to commit to doing the right thing and to expressing censure on those who do not. Our government and our society has privatised morality and then fails to hold people properly to account - if everyone who beats a child to death was executed, if every parent found guilty law for beating their child had every one of their children taken off them and were thrown in jail for life, if people got that we took this seriously, that we expect a higher standard and that we value children it might start making a dent.

Madeleine