Theology. Ethics. Politics. War. Peace. Sushi. MLK Memorial. Asian-American camaraderie. That pretty much sums up my weekend at the annual meeting of the SCE this weekend in DC.
As usual it was an enjoyable time of learning, seeing old friends, and meeting new ones. The general topic of this year’s meeting was “War and Peace in the Age of Terrorism and the Presidency of Barack Obama.” As someone quite interested in the ethics of war and peace I found many of the sessions fascinating.
During the conference I sat in on the following papers and/or panels:
Andrew Bacevich, “The Sources of American Conduct” (Plenary Address)
In his 1947 essay “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” the American diplomat George F. Kennan sought to describe the
“political personality” of Soviet Power — in essence explaining why the Soviet Union behaved as it did in the world. My presentation will attempt something similar for the United States today. Kennan found his explanation in “ideology and circumstances.” My presentation will include those factors while adding several others, among them identity, culture, political economy, and inertia.
Matthew A. Shadle, “What is at Stake in the Debate Over Presumptions in the Just War Tradition” (I found his presentation quite helpful and interesting in sorting out some of the internal debates among just war theorists over the “presumption against violence” many have recently espoused should be/is part of the tradition.)
Advocates of the Christian just war tradition have divided over whether that tradition is best characterized by a
presumption against violence or one in favor of justice. The two camps have been largely talking past one another because the bases for disagreement lie in underlying issues of fundamental moral theology. Therefore attempts to resolve the dispute through appeals to the just war tradition itself will prove fruitless unless the more fundamental issues of disagreement such as the definition of the moral object, the relationship between the object and the intention, and the question of absolute moral norms, are first clarified.
Mark Allman and Tobias Winright, “Fruits and Loops: A Robustly Theological and Realistic Just War Theory for the Twenty-First Century” (I found this session helpful in moving the conversation about just war past the 100% just or 0% just binary that often accompanies judgments of specific wars.)
We propose an enhancement and expansion of just war theory that is theologically grounded and relevant to the contemporary realities of war in two ways: 1) Connecting just peacemaking and post-war ethics to the traditional just war categories of jus ad bellum and jus in bello, thereby closing the loop (ante-ad-in-post bellum) for a more comprehensive theory; 2) Tapping into the recent but neglected category of “comparative justice,” thereby suggesting that the absence of justice ad bellum need not poison all that follows. A kind of good fruit (imperfect justice) can be harvested from a bad tree.
Hak Joon Lee and Ki Joo Choi, “Asian and Asian-American Public Theology” (This session made clear the possibilities, difficulties, and limits of doing “Asian American Public Theology.”)
What is the relationship between theology and public concern? And how is that relationship (re)constituted by publics whose identities have been externally and internally contested? Asian and Asian American Christianity receives the already-fraught challenge of public theology and situates it in terms of various identitarian politics: ethnicity, race (whatever “race” now means), gender, class, denomination, and so on. In turn, public theology situates these open-ended contestations by placing them within this other kind of contested space, that is, church and world. This concurrent session attempts to give voice to an Asian and Asian-American key of public theology.”
Stanley Hauerwas, “Bearing Reality” (Presidential Address)
Stephen L. Carter, “The Morality of Targeted Killing” (Plenary)
The Obama Administration has made targeted killing the principal focus of its pursuit of terror groups. As American troops depart Iraq and Afghanistan, the role of targeted killing will become even greater. Some observers have raised questions about whether the practice is consistent with just war theory. I will discuss that question, and the significant problem that targeted killing poses for democracy.”
Elizabeth M. Bounds, “Claiming the Ordinary in Christian Social Ethics” (My teacher Dr. Bounds continues to push me in thinking about the function and method of Christian Social Ethics in 21st century America. In addition, her discussion of the lives of imprisoned women highlighted the contextual and institutionally mediated nature of lived morality.)
Christian social ethics has assumed “a social-ethical mission to transform the structures of society in the direction of social justice” (Dorrien 2010). But the relationship of a principled “ought” and a social –cultural “is” undergirding the mission of a Rauschenbusch or a Niebuhr is no longer valid. The turn to virtue ethics addresses this gap, but often at the expense of justice claims. I will suggest that attending to ordinary practices enables exploration of complex experience rarely “solved” by prescriptive claims. I will use some examples drawn from various ethnographic works, especially with incarcerated persons, to suggest some implications of doing social ethics rooted in ordinary lives.”
Dan Cantey, “On the Gospel and the Redemption of the Soldier: Theological Reflections from a Veteran of the
Invasion of Iraq (2003)” (A colleague of mine at Emory who combined deep theological reflection, drawing on Augustine, Luther, Pachomius, and Philip Berrigan, with his own experience of military life.)
What options does the Christian gospel offer, in its varied interpretations, for making use of the experience of military life, including war? In addressing this question in terms of peace of conscience and penance, I shall sketch two contrasting visions of the Christian faith, “abolition” and “perdurance,” emphasizing their understandings of grace in light of the struggle against death and its deliverers, notably war. In each case, the gospel can absorb the experience of war into its prerogatives, though the associated practices of penance differ considerably.
Michael Walzer, “Conceptions of Peace in the Hebrew Bible” (Plenary)
Margaret R. Pfeil, “Terrible Luminosity: Social Sin, Systemic Reconciliation, and the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki” (A very interesting paper about nuclear proliferation that has motivated me to dig deeper into Dr. Pfeil’s work on reconciliation. Her work on sin and reconciliation seems like it will be helpful for me in my dissertation.)
This essay will develop a systemic account of possible practices of reconciliation in correlation with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Against the horizon of the sacramentality of material creation, the holistic framework of systems theory suggests practices of social reconciliation rooted in liturgy, including the cultivation of contemplative awareness, fasting and penance, and linking systemic environmental healing with the restoration of right relationship, through communal examination of conscience.
In addition to these papers I sat in on a couple of panel and working group sessions on Asian/Asian-American Christian Ethics. As a member of this working/interest group, I always find these sessions times of intellectual and professional growth.
This was only my second time at SCE, but I’ve found it to be a friendly community of scholarship that contributes to my growth and challenges my thinking. Where else in the world do hundreds of esteemed theologians and ethicists gather for several days to discuss deeply and debate vigorously the pressing issues of our day?
If this inadequate overview at all piqued your interest I encourage you to attend next year’s meeting in Chicago. I’m sure it will be a joy!
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