war

reading bell's article brought up several points that i had never considered before. i somewhat knew what the term just war meant, but i didn't really understand what it meant for me. this is one of the main things bell discusses. ignorance. "ignorance of the tradition leaves us vulnerable to manipulation, with the result that we support things we should not support, and do not support things we should." one of the biggest examples of this today is the war. thousands of people, ignorant people, supported us going into the war without really knowing what it was they were supporting. i think that part of our responsibility as christians in the whole idea of this just war concept is simply to start by educating the people around us. we can't just wake up one day and decide to save the world. i mean yeah its a great thought, but its not just going to happen one day. you have to start small. another point that bell mentions that i really liked is how afraid we are. our whole lives we are taught about how Christ defeats sin and death. so if God is with us, why should we fear sin and death? he also mentions how people who fear death will have a harder time believing in just war as discipleship. bell then follows with how we should go about changing this. "the opportunity is to recover the courage of faith, the gift of living in holy insecurity. then we will be able to take up the cross, serving our neighbors (including our enemies) fearlessly in pursuit of a just peace." this was probably one of my favorite quotes out of the whole article. and while there were several things that he wrote that i still don't totally agree with, it has really made me think about what i do and don't believe about just war.