The Horrors We Bless: Rethinking the Just-War Legacy

Is war inevitable? Is it so woven into the fabric of our being that it always was and always will be? Early Christians, says Maguire, were unanimous in opposing this view. They didn’t see war as normal but an outrage and even a sacrilege. Maguire argues that later Christians succumbed to the supposed normalcy of war and developed what later became known as the just-war theory, which was actually devised as a deterrent to the rush to war.