Hope in Times of War

"Hope in Times of War: A Theological Ethic of Contemporary Conflict builds on Karl Barth's and H. Richard Niebuhr's work concerning the second World War to propose an alternative to the classical just-war theory. The resulting theological ethic argues that God must remain primary in ethical decision-making, while meaningful human action is understood and justified only in response to prior divine acts in history. In this way we can be realistic as to the boundaries of human action while remaining hopeful for the future. We do this by realizing that we as humans are not rational beings who pursue logic in all our experiences, but are symbol-users who strive to understand ourselves and our world through symbols or patterns from our traditions. For Christians, Jesus Christ is central to these symbols, and Trinitarian symbols can be used to understand the ethical problem presented by war.

The book's final chapter applies this model to Yugoslavia and demonstrates how one ought to think ethically about conflict situations."--BOOK JACKET.