Should Britain supply Ukraine with more weapons? A Christian pacifist perspective
Short paper submitted from a Christian pacifist perspective to the Church of England's Faith & Order Commission. Question: how Christians should respond to the prevailing international mood of rearmament, and specifically what our stance should be to the call to supply Ukraine with more weapons? “Pacifists always bear the burden of proof. They do so because, as attractive as nonviolence may be, most assume that pacifism just will not work. You may want to keep a few pacifists around for reminding those burdened with running the world that what they sometimes have to do is a lesser evil, but pacifism simply cannot and should not be, even for Christians, a normative stance.” Thus says theologian Stanley Hauerwas regarding the pacifist perspective. Yet pacifism is not a singular concept, and it is one often misunderstood. From a specifically Christian perspective it is important to distinguish between two particular forms: liberal and what I will call Christological. Aligning
