Book reviews:

Harvey, Anthony 1999. Demanding Peace: Christian Responses to War and Violence. London: SCM.

In this timely book, Canon Harvey contends that the debate between Christian pacifist and 'Just War' traditions needs re-opening in the light of new conditions of warfare and peacekeeping.

Demanding Peace acknowledges an ambiguity in scripture on warfare. Unlike many commentators, Harvey doubts that Jesus' apparently unqualified pacifist sayings alone amount to an unequivocal condemnation of the institution of warfare. Instead, he finds in the cross as exemplar a more convincing theological endorsement of pacifism.

Harvey then traces the pedigree of the Just War tradition. This enables him to rehearse contemporary challenges to it- globalised economic power, destructive new weaponry, the involvement of civilian populations in 'total warfare,' and the prevalence of civil wars. He also explores the muddying of the pacifist / non-pacifist divide arising from the emergence of global organisations such as the UN and the phenomenon of mass non-violent resistance.

Harvey argues that these developments demand that the Just War tradition be either radically revised or abandoned.

Whilst acknowledging that Christians still generally align themselves with their own warring states, he notes a gradual shift in church thinking and believes that the time is ripe for the initiation of "a debate which might eventually lead to a pacifism becoming the norm for the churches instead of a minority movement within them."

This is surely a debate to which Christian Socialists can contribute. Many early Christian Socialists adamantly rejected just war theory. George Lansbury wrote, "there is no halfway house for Christians between war and complete reliance upon peace by disarmament. Once we concede the rightness of wars, for whatever purpose, we give our case away." New Labour's enthusiasm for Clinton's chilling 'military humanism' and Bush's Orwellian 'war against terror' demand our critical scrutiny. Harvey's balanced and thoughtful book is a good place to begin that process.

Nick Megoran, for Christian Socialist 182, Summer 2002: p.13. Click to visit the website of the Christian Socialist Movement