Church panelists argue US war in Iran fails tests of both ‘just war’ and pacifist traditions

[Episcopal News Service] The United States launches a deadly war thousands of miles away in Iran. The “Secretary of War” frames the military attacks as aligned with “the providence of our almighty God.” The president threatens that “a whole civilization will die tonight” to pressure his Iranian adversaries to surrender.

Two Christian theological traditions can help guide faithful responses to such actions and rhetoric by the Trump administration, according to the three panelists in an April 15 webinar convened by The Episcopal Church’s Washington, D.C.-based Office of Government Relations. Some theologians use a “just war” framework in analyzing government-sanctioned violence, while others argue for a pacifism rooted in Jesus’ teaching that Christians should love their enemies.

Under either theological approach, the Trump administration’s war on Iran fails the test, the panelists concluded.

“The U.S. war in Iran is unjust. It’s a violation of international law and the rule-based order. It’s an affront to the way of the Prince of Peace,” Kyle Lambelet, an associate professor of ethics at Virginia Theological Seminary, said in arguing for the doctrine of pacifism in the Zoom webinar.

On March 2, people walk past buildings damaged during a strike on a police station during joint U.S.-Israeli military attacks on Tehran, Iran. Photo: Associated Press

Lambelet was joined on the panel by the Rt. Rev. Ann Ritonia, The Episcopal Church’s bishop suffragan of armed forces and federal ministries, and Charles Mathewes, professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia. The discussion was introduced by Rebecca Blachly, the church’s chief of public policy and witness, and moderated by Scott MacDougall, the church’s director of theological resources.

The Episcopal military chaplains whose service Ritonia coordinates “are feeling torn right now” as they provide pastoral guidance to military leaders and servicemembers at war. They must grapple with how to respond when military action “violates moral convictions,” such as the deaths of more than 150 Iranians at a school that was destroyed when the U.S. and Israel initially launched their bombing campaign on Feb. 28.

The war with Iran “certainly doesn’t meet the criteria, at least in my opinion, of ‘just war,’” Ritonia said. She advises military chaplains to “sit in the tension of that space” and “let your presence make it easier for truth and mercy to be spoken in the same breath.”

The theology of war has moved to the forefront of contemporary debate since President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance openly criticized Pope Leo XIV over the Roman Catholic pontiff’s calls for peace, as Jesus taught.

“God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sward and today drop bombs,” Leo, the first American pope, said in a social media post April 10. “Military action will not create space for freedom or times of peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.”

That statement followed U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s frequent use of religious imagery to describe the conflict with Iran, including likening the rescue of a downed fighter pilot to Jesus’ resurrection.

On Easter, April 5, Trump posted to social media a profane demand that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz or “you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.” Then a week later, on April 12, Trump attacked Leo by name, calling him “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.”

Leo responded April 13 that he had “no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel.” The next day, Vance joined in criticizing Leo, questioning the theology of the pope’s faith-based opposition to military attacks.

“Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis?” Vance said at an event in Georgia. “I certainly think the answer is yes.”

The Rt. Rev. Ann Ritonia, bishop suffragan of armed forces and federal ministries, speaks April 15 in a webinar about Christian responses to war.

During The Episcopal Church’s webinar, Mathewes spoke about the deep theological roots of the “just war” tradition — which says violence, though wrong, may be justified within certain boundaries when seeking to prevent a greater evil. But he cautioned that the decision to go to war, as a Christian, is always understood as “part of a larger theology of history, of justice and of judgment.”

A war can only be deemed “just” after acknowledging that all humans are corrupted by sin and that the decision to go to war is “made at real moral cost,” he said.

“The justice and judgment of God are beginning to be worked out in history on this account,” Mathewes said. “And the just war tradition depicts us humans as necessarily part of the world and, as such, part of the awesome and horrendous unspooling of God’s providential judgment on the world.”

Lambelet outlined two faulty theological arguments for war, both of which he said have been made by the Trump administration regarding its attacks on Iran.

Hegseth’s use of religious language seems to cast this as a “holy war,” with God on the side of the U.S., Lambelet said, while Trump’s assertion that he has the authority to obliterate another country and its people echoes historical claims that “war is hell” and therefore “beyond moral constraint.”

“Neither of these are aligned with the Gospel,” Lambelet said.

In addition to biblical support for a theology of pacifism, he cited decades of church doctrine, as adopted by both The Episcopal Church’s General Convention and the global Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, in arguing that war is morally wrong.

“War as a method of settling international disputes is incompatible with the teaching and example of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” the Lambeth Conference said in 1930, a statement cited by Lambelet.

He also invoked the example of the earliest Christian disciples, who refused to participate in Roman wars because of their faith beliefs. “Jesus, the Prince of Peace, calls us to what Paul names the ministry of reconciliation, modeling in his own treatment of neighbors, of strangers, of enemies ways of engaging conflict without violence,” he said.

Ritonia also referenced the dual theologies of just war and pacifism, saying “The Episcopal Church doesn’t typically say, pick a team” when considering those two traditions.

But if a nation goes to war, “how do we fight without losing our humanity?” Ritonia asked. “The heart of the [just war] tradition is restraint, accountability, even when the situation is brutal.”

Pacifism, on the other hand, “gives us a different kind of moral clarity,” she said.

“It says the church’s deepest calling is to witness to the peace of Christ, essentially enemy love, and to refuse the logic that says violence is the final answer,” she said. “Jesus’ teachings are not only private spirituality, but they are the public ethic for the people of God.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.