With the ongoing tension arising because of the bellicose provocations from North Korea, many believers are pondering whether it would be moral for the USA to initiate a pre-emptive strike. The objective, of course, would be to protect American lives in the same way it would be moral for a police officer to shoot a person armed with a gun about to kill an innocent person. Of course, there are many things to consider as believers and as rational human beings.
First of all, we have to consider if there are any options that do not involve military conflict. Second, as believers, we have to consider the fact that there are millions of praying Christians in harm’s way in South Korea, Japan and other nations within striking distance of the missiles of North Korea—not to mention the unnumbered among the persecuted church in North Korea that our military strike will annihilate.
Many centuries ago, the influential church father, St. Augustine (the bishop of Hippo in North Africa) wrestled with the question of armed conflict when he proposed what he called the “just war” theory. To summarize, Augustine said some wars are just in the eyes of God, and some are unjust. To opine, a just war is one that arises out of a motive to save and/or to protect human life, and an unjust war is predicated upon wrong motives such as greed, conquest and exploitation of human life (such as the forceful capture of humans for the slave trade industry).
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