War must be seen as a last resort, the only reason for war is to create peace
The stark realisation came to me that they might not come back.
I was working as a priest at Portsmouth Cathedral at the time and came in close touch with members of the Armed Forces, especially naval chaplains.
Like the diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, the diocese of Portsmouth was founded in the twentieth century.
For the cathedral, Portsmouth chose the parish church of Old Portsmouth, St Thomas of Canterbury, down by the harbour mouth.
Watching the television news coverage in recent weeks and months from the ever-increasing countries ravaged by war brought back my Portsmouth memories and challenged me to think about the idea of war as a just thing.
As a student studying theology, part of our course was in philosophy, which included the concept of a just war.
The notion of a just war is not an easy one to accept.
How can any war, killing, be right?
What we need to understand is that the idea of a just war does not exist to put forward reasons for justifying going to war.
What it does do is to provide a set of criteria for judging one way or the other: is going to war the answer or not?
As we gaze at the horrors on our television screens, how do we even begin to work out the rights and wrongs of it all?
Much international and military law has the idea of a just war woven into it.
For instance, there must be a just cause for going to war.
Today, the only justifiable cause is acknowledged as self-defence.
Then, before war is even considered, every other means of solving the crisis must have been tried and have failed.
Bishop Graeme Knowles (Image: Supplied) War must be seen as a last resort; the only reason for war is to create peace.
This means a just peace, not peace at any price.
There must be a careful weighing of the consequences of going to war.
There must be proportion, a belief that more good than evil will be the result of the action taken.
The last criterion is that there must be a reasonable chance of success.
All this reads rather coldly, but there are two other vital components when considering the idea of a just war.
The first is that there must be no direct attacks on people who pose no military threat; in other words, unarmed civilians.
The second is that there must be a careful weighing of the consequences of warfare.
All these arguments assume a calm, logical approach to human affairs.
They ignore the baser elements of human nature: greed, jealousy, and racial and religious bigotry.
In navigating our way through the war of words and images with which we are presented, we must, though, have something to balance our own prejudices.
The idea of a just war and what that means is simply one tool we can use.
As I have been writing this article, resounding in my ears have been the words of Jesus: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God."
Jesus bears the title Prince of Peace.
My primary purpose, therefore, as a Christian and as a human being, is to be a peacemaker.
I might not be able to have very much of a direct effect on international politics, but I can have a direct and purposeful effect on the way I live my life.
In 1955, Jill Jackson wrote a hymn which began: "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me."
It is a text we should all take to heart and act on.
Bishop Graeme Knowles is acting Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich
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