Written by Andrew Errington

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Over the past months, as news of the war in Iran has focused attention afresh on questions about the morality of war, ideas associated with ‘Just War theory’ have resurfaced in the media and in conversation. The Christian Just War tradition has had a profound impact on modern thinking about the ethics of war, and remains a resource for such thinking today, even among secular ethicists. It is especially natural that Christians seeking to think about a war involving one of Australia’s closest and most important allies would look to their own tradition for help. This Briefing aims to briefly introduce and defend the Christian Just War tradition, in the interest of helping Christians to think more intelligently and more faithfully about the reality of war. It does not primarily aim to analyse or judge current conflicts, but to assist people to understand how such judgments might be made, if they need to be.

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