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- [00:05]
A
Well, welcome to a special bonus episode of the Breakpoint Podcast. I'm John Stonestreet, the president of the Colson center and the host of breakpoint. And whenever something happens like what happened over the weekend on early Saturday morning, the world learned that the United States and Israel had initiated strikes on the nation of Iran, targeting specifically a set of leaders that were meeting together there, led to the death of the ayatollah. And reports are up to 45 or so military leaders that were killed in those strikes, which set off a conflict now that has developed even pretty dramatically since the whole thing began Saturday morning. But as a Christian, we need to think about what happens in the world as Christians. And as Christians, there is a history, a tradition, what's called the just war tradition, that can inform how we think about what is going on, how we think about folks that are our enemies, our nation's enemies, how do we think about civilians, how do we think about other Christians on the ground there, how do we pray, and how do we act whenever it's appropriate for us to act? I've always been grateful for the leadership on Thinking through the Just war tradition by Dr. Eric Patterson. Dr. Patterson is the President and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial foundation and the author of several books on the just war tradition. I think most popularly a book written in 2023, a basic guide to the Just War Christian Foundations and Practices. So he was on the move early this week, but I was able to nail him down, at least for a few minutes, to have a conversation about these remarkable historic events that we see happening in the Middle East. So, Eric, always good to see you, and thanks for jumping on with such
- [01:55]
B
short notice, John, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me today.
- [01:57]
A
Well, I just first want to get your reaction as a human being, as a Christian, as someone who's been in the military yourself, who served even in the White House in a capacity, how did you take that news Saturday morning? What kind of went through your mind when you saw that?
- [02:11]
B
The first thing I thought was, it's about time. And the reason for that was that just thinking about last month, January of this year, where as many as 40,000 Iranians protesting for freedom, democracy and human rights were mowed down by their own regime. And I think about the last, last 40 years of this infamous regime attacking its neighbors, stirring up civil war and dissension in Syria, in Lebanon, in Israel, in Yemen and so many other places, and the many attacks it's had on the United States, it's hard to imagine the Middle east won't be a much, much better place with this regime at the least, chastened and perhaps changed.
- [02:50]
A
You know, one of the more remarkable things that's even become more clear in the last 48 hours is just how many of Iran's neighbors wanted this strike to happen, wanted the US And Israel to act and have clearly taken sides. Now, one of the reasons they've taken sides is the retaliatory strikes from Iran have targeted Israeli or US bases, even some civilian locations, as I understand it, in several of these countries. Were you surprised by that? I guess I was a little bit surprised by, I guess, how many lined up to be on the other side of this.
- [03:26]
B
I'm not surprised. And the reason I'm not surprised is because Iran is a large country, over 90 million people. So you compare that to its biggest adversary other than Israel. Saudi Arabia, just a quarter the size, you think about the Gulf states like United Arab Emirates and other countries, you think about Jordan. Lots of these countries are close allies with the United States. Many of them have figured out how to work with Israel over the past 20 or 25 years. But it's Iran who has funded terrorism in all of these countries. It's Iran that destabilized Syria, Iraq, et cetera. It's Iran that has destabilized the Arabian Peninsula by supporting the Houthi rebels. They've proliferated their weapons across the globe. They've put weapons in the hands of Hezbollah and Hamas. So the Arabs, particularly the Sunni Arabs of this region, are quite happy to see the Shia leaders of Iran go down.
- [04:19]
A
Yeah, I mean, even those who didn't agree with the timing of this or the strike of this or what it was. No one was sad that the Ayatollah had been eliminated in this, given the history of the regime. And by the way, I just want to let our listeners know that the timing of this is pretty remarkable too. One of my favorite podcasts is the Rest is History with the historian Tom Holland in the UK and his partner Dominic. I don't know Dominic's last name, I just know him as Tom and Dominic from that program. But they just did a four part series on the overthrow of Iran and the shah in the 70s and the role that the US played there, the hostages. It's just a fascinating history and it's amazing having just kind of thought about that at a level I never have. I can just barely remember Ronald Reagan's first term in my memory. Of course that's when the hostages came home. But just to think that we're kind of on the other bookend of that, aren't we? I mean, that was kind of the first bookend and this could be the other bookend of that story.
- [05:30]
B
Well, it'd be super for it to be a bookend. And it's worth remembering all the attacks. I can't enumerate them here, but the attack on the Khobar Towers that killed American service personnel in Saudi Arabia, it was a proxy of Iran. The attack on the US Military barracks in Beirut, it was a proxy of Iran that killed 220 young American Marines. The list goes on through the Iraq war war close to 200Americans dead caused by Iranian backed militias. They have spread terror and terrorism and their form of unique violence to Lebanon, to Israel, to Syria, to Gaza, just across the region. And so an end to a regime that is so destabilizing and that doesn't even count its pursuit of nuclear weapons really should be a step forward for world peace.
- [06:19]
A
Yeah. Well, listen, let's jump into how do we think about this as Christians and of course a big part of the Christian moral tradition. There's not a chapter and verse in the Bible that says, you know, this is when it's okay to go to war or okay to fight back, or okay to defend yourself or okay to be preemptive. You know, that's not there. But there is a long history of Christians wrestling with the use of force, both on an individual level, but in this case on a, on a, on a national level. But then there's also the dynamics of the modern world. When you talk about multiple nations, when you talk about the overall capacity for war making, that's not face to face, that's not personal. I mean, to me there's just so many ethical angles on what does it mean to think about this as a Christian. As you and I were texting and writing about back and forth on this over the weekend, you suggested that we needed to expand our category of the just war tradition, which you've written prolifically about, to just statescraft. In other words, that this involves also not just the decision to go into war and how it's waged, but also what's done on the front end and certainly what's done on the back end and how many of these things actually need to be done simultaneously. So, so first of all, and by the way, Eric, one of the things I want to make sure people know about your book, a Basic Guide to the Just War Tradition, which is a terrific introduction to this and a framing of this, but let me ask you this. Do you think the just war tradition needs to be updated or are you just, are you kind of like, you know, approximating St. Augustine here to kind of jump out and throw in a new category? Or how are you thinking about this?
- [08:08]
B
Well, thanks, John, for mentioning that book. And there's two, I done two recent Christian books, that one and then another one called Just War and Christian Tradition that looks at denominational perspectives on the unique Christian approach to thinking about issues of war and peace. The reason that I emphasize this term about just statecraft is just because we sometimes only are talking about hot war and we forget that when we think about issues of justice and security. We're talking about political leaders and we're talking about the intelligence community, we're talking about humanitarians who try to assuage poverty and destruction. We're talking about the diplomats who are at all points before war and after trying to deter and to shape the environment towards peace and away from hot conflict. And of course, all of those actors are working through the hot conflict on the back end. So we're not just talking about a moment when a president or a prime minister makes a decision and then guns start blazing. We really are talking about this wider issue of statecraft. And it's really through the Bible. Romans 13 tells us that the purpose of government is really order and justice or security and justice. And we see that play out in the Old Testament with David and Nehemiah and Joseph and Daniel and righteous kings like Hezekiah. It's not something new for us as Christians to be thinking about the way that political authorities act on just causes with right intention. And in fact, the heartbeat of this tradition has been three questions. The first being when is it moral to use force? And that's actually the answer that Augustine and Aquinas and so many others, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, all the way up to our present time, have consistently come back to. And by the way, it's the basis for international law. And again, it's legitimate public authorities. Government authorities may use force, doesn't mean they have to, but they consider it when there's a just cause with right intention. And that just cause are things like justice, right in the past, wrong preventing future wrongs, self defense of the vulnerable. And of course, right intention is something that Christianity brings to this that's very important. God looks on the heart, he knows the heart, he knows our intentions. We're told that our motivations matter. And so in a case like Iran, acting out of love of neighbor, wanting to protect the neighbors in the region, the Israelis and others love of the Iranian people. We can love them and try to decapitate the leadership. Love of our own people, of protecting and self defense of our own people. And all of those things, including righteous indignation against the Ayatollahs. That is different than hating the enemy, wanting to crush or torture the enemy, dehumanizing the enemy. And certainly we have not heard any language from the President or from his allies that wants to hurt the Iranian people. Instead. The intention really seems to be a desire to liberate the people and provide peace and security beyond Iran's borders.
- [11:13]
A
Well, let me ask you this because one of the critiques so far has been this came to basically in the midst of negotiations. There were negotiations with the President's son in law and some others, just I think Thursday and Friday, I think, and then this happened Saturday morning. And then also the idea that, well, this is preemptive, there was false pretenses here that Iran had missile capabilities, ballistic missile capabilities to reach the U.S. that's something that President Trump threatened was, was either, well, I think he used the word imminent or soon. What about that critique in terms of the diplomatic process was still going on. And this really qualifies as preemptive.
- [12:00]
B
Well, there's a just war secondary principle of likelihood of success and one of last resort. So when political leaders have made up their mind that, well, force is an option in this case we think about, so what are the other characteristics there? And of course you and I won't know all the intel or the ins and outs. But, but let me just remind us that it's been 20 years of Iran stringing along the west on its nuclear weapons programs and continually violating things. It's, it's international covenants on this. It's been 40 years of Iran beating up on its own people. It's been 40 years of Iran attacking its neighbors or supporting terrorists around the area. So President Trump said when coming into office that dealing with Iran was a top priority for him. It's unfinished business in part because the Obama and the Biden administrations had had what Obama called an open hand towards the Iranian leadership. Let me just remind you, when Obama came into office, he gave a speech in Cairo saying that we want to have democracy across the Middle East. And so the Iranian people went out in the streets in, in June of 2009, just like we saw in January of 2026. But then Obama pivoted and said, my open hand is to the regime. And the regime killed its people and it throttled that movement. We have had 15 years since then of efforts to try to throttle the Iranians nuclear capacity and their state sponsorship of terror. It hasn't worked. So the negotiation, remember in the negotiations last week, the Iranians were unwilling to give on anything, whereas the Trump administration now has secured peace deals, the Abrahamic accords between Israel and five of its neighbors. So we talk about track records of peace in the region. Theirs is very bad. And so that's the justification that the Trump administration has given for this attack.
- [13:57]
A
Let me ask you this as well, because usually when we think about this tradition as a moral framework for, for it's to justify the action of going to war. On the other hand, I mean, your examples of the Obama administration, we certainly had some examples within the Biden administration and the history of kind of putting up with this for now, 20 plus years and not doing anything. Is there a moral guilt in the just war tradition from not acting when you should act on a national level?
- [14:32]
B
This is a very hard one. I would say that there that Western societies do feel some guilt, for instance, for, for not fully coming to terms with the Holocaust, what was going on. I do think that there were Western leaders who actually just couldn't actually believe the scale and how horrible it was. But putting that aside, they did wait quite a long time to build up their own militaries to take on the Nazis in the 1930s anyways. And so there's a kind of a double sense there of a failed opportunity to contain the Nazis and then a failed opportunity to try to stop the death and destruction of the horrific 6 million killed by the Holocaust. So can there be a sense of guilt in the aftermath? Certainly. We would certainly have a sense that we want, you know, if there was a major attack, a ballistic missile attack on for instance, Europe from Iran or in East Africa, we would certainly. And there had been something that could be done, but the decision was not to do it because we didn't want to appear like a warmonger that really we would feel terrible in the aftermath. In fact, we'd have a sense of moral guilt that we didn't act to prevent that wrongdoing. In the Iranian case, they just have a track record of being belligerent and of attacking and they have a very low regard for human life. So those are the kinds of things that I think Christians need to be thinking about in an extraordinary circumstance. I'd say the second thing that Christians ought to be thinking about in this is the just war or this just statecraft tradition talks about how wars fought, the ethics of how war is fought. Military necessity, the principle of proportionality is the battlefield response proportionate to the threat, the risk, the grievance and discrimination. The idea of distinguishing between legitimate military targets and trying to protect as much as possible private property, civilian life, infrastructure and things of that nature. And if you look at the way that this has been conducted, it has again been extremely targeted at the top leadership, at military and security forces and at those sites. And so that's one of those very reasonable areas that everyone should ask the question on. Is the intent here to hurt the Iranian people? Where's the intent to stop the warmongering faction at the top?
- [16:50]
A
Yeah, it's obviously incredibly impressive and I think even today, here we're talking here on Monday, that the president even expressed some surprise that that intelligence was solid, that there were 45 Iran's top military leaders there. Obviously the ayatollah as well, you just couldn't have written that script. And a lot of that has to do with the incredible intelligence that that Israel brings to the table on this. I think that they've been incredibly impressive. But you know, that was the first strike and then there has been retaliation. And certainly when you look at Iran's retaliation around the region, are they violating that kind of how to wage war in a just way? Are they violating those principles?
- [17:40]
B
Well, certainly if they're just in a mad screed just throwing everything that they've got, particularly civilian centers, to just try to hurt, to cause harm. If they're attacking airports, shopping malls, any of these types of things, and it's not always clear exactly where their drones or missiles are aimed. But I would say that again, look at what the targets are, look at who they're trying to hurt, and look at the track record from the past. I think the thing here, again as a Christian is we ask ourselves that third question about the, the morality of late and post conflict. I mean, what is the goal? And it really actually is a question. So with Iran's attacks, its destabilizing efforts, it's its desire for nuclear weapons, you know, what, what is its end of peace? What is its goal or objective over the long haul? How does it, you know, what is for the ayatollahs, do they. Is was their vision a peaceful property, prosperous, democratic society in good relations with their neighbors? No, but we, but we also have to be asking ourselves the question, you know, what, what does peace for this region look like? How are we contributing to that use post belm the morality of peace? And certainly again, we've seen this administration be very creative with the ending of the Gaza war. It's imperfect, but it's actually pretty stunning. We've seen this administration say that its goal here would be to create a different environment for the people of Iran, but they have to seize the moment. And President Trump is pretty clear, and I think he's been clear actually since the 1980s. As a private citizen, he doesn't wanna see more American troops deployed abroad unless it's absolutely necessary for American national interests. He didn't do it in Venezuela. I don't think he'll do it here. We've seen this emphasis on peace between Israel and its neighbors with the five Abrahamic Accord countries that have signed these peace deals with Israel. So I think that there's a lot of emphasis here on a goal of peace that is a mutual win. It is love, my neighbor. Let me just remind you that C.S. lewis said of the Sermon on the Mount, listen, it's not about war. The people who heard it knew that Jesus was talking about daily village life and not letting our pride and our ego make us be pushing back and fighting back with the petty indignities of just normal life. But then he said, and they knew that Jesus was not telling us by turn the other cheek that if a homicidal maniac was going to attack a child that we should step out of the way. That is not what we're talking about here. So I think it's worth just reminding ourselves of kind of the common sense, maybe take the politics out of it. If it wasn't Trump, if it wasn't Biden, if it wasn't Bush, if it wasn't Obama, what if it was Abraham Lincoln or what if it was George Washington who had authorized this activity? Take the politics out of it. And how would we feel about it based on what has happened and what has been said.
- [20:40]
A
Can I, can I hit a couple more of the either objections or critiques that I've heard in the last 72 hours or so? One is we got early reports that there was a strike that hit a girls school and that led to the deaths of over 100 manly children. Now, we should be, I think, rightly cautious about what news we're hearing and what news we are trusting on this. I've also heard reports that Iran has taken responsibility, that it was their own misfire. We live in such a time where it's almost impossible to know, you know, who's telling us the truth on something like that. But you also have the do the best you can to not target Civilians. But in war, bad things always happen. How do you. I don't want to say balance, but how do you hold together an intentional act of targeting civilians and then just, you know, look, if we had not gone to war, something like that would have never happened. These are innocent civilians.
- [21:49]
B
But.
- [21:50]
A
And what do you do with that? How do you put all that together within the framework?
- [21:53]
B
I think we start as Christians always by the recognition that we live in a fallen and imperfect world. So mistakes can happen. Or in some cases, for instance, what we saw in Gaza, Hamas actually built its headquarters under hospitals and things of that nature purposely. In other words, the terrorists or the rogue actor is the one who's deliberately using human shields. They're the ones putting their own civilians in harm's way. What we should be doing is trying our very best in every instance to follow the laws of armed conflict and these, these moral principles. But it's. It is imperfect. It is imperfect. But I would, I would just remind us that since in the, in the first 60 days of the year, if you will, since January 1st, it's estimated that the Iranian regime has murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens, and we're talking about an attack with, with several dozen Iranian civilians who've been killed. Everyone is a loss, right? Because we think that everyone is made in the image of God. But we ought to pause on that point and recognize that so often the criticisms that come about the US military about that there are some collateral damage or deaths of civilians is operating from the moral principle that comes from Christianity. And that is the beauty of the individual human person, the imago dei, the. That's where we start. And so that's why these elements of warfare are always tragic. But that doesn't mean that they're not necessary with a goal to peace.
- [23:25]
A
Let me just park on that really quick, because I think that is something that people forget. I mean, listen, again, there's not a chapter and verse in the Bible that you can go to and say, you know, here's where the entire just war or just statescraft, you know, process or framework is laid out. But prior to Christianity, it wasn't even thought of this way, right? I mean, there was no kind of categories of thinking, okay, when is the right. When is war justified? And what way is war justified and what should the outcome be? I mean, that's just not even part of ancient warfare or any other religion or any other philosophy or ethnic group or ancient civilization. They're not even asking these questions at all.
- [24:10]
B
Well, there's. There's a Little bit of this in Cicero, for instance, who is, you know, just a, just a lifetime before Jesus. Some of this about what is the end of politics. It's this bigger question of statecraft and about a prudential or kind of a natural law approach to including limitations on the state. And most religions have some practical guidelines, such as, don't cut down all the trees because you're going to want the fruit down the road. Don't poison the wells because you're going to want fresh water. Certainly we have that, for instance, in Islam. Here's the huge difference. And so there's a level of this kind of natural law reasoning across civilizations. A certain kind of practical don't murder your mother and don't ruin the environment because you have to live there after the war is over. Here's the big difference from Christianity, and you've talked about it before, the valuing of human life, the valuing of the slave, the valuing of the woman, the valuing of the child. This is how the world knew that the early church was so different, was this universal ethic of recognizing the value of the individual human person. And that transmits very powerfully into this Christian tradition of just war. This idea of just statecraft is, at its heart is the duties that we owe to God to be seeking justice and security and the duties we owe to our fellow man. How do we do neighbor love? Well, in part by defending them, by upholding justice, by securing the rights of everyone. And so that's a great limitation because it makes us see the enemy and they are the enemy, but it doesn't make them value less. We don't dehumanize them. That's the part of Christianity, all throughout all of Christianity that infuses the way we think about law and politics and the use of force.
- [26:03]
A
Yeah, well, it's an incredible and important conversation that I think the church keeps up front because otherwise we will be tempted to just go in whatever direction our, you know, the people on our side go, you know, for right or for wrong. Another objection that I've heard is comparing this action to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The idea of trying to nation build. Obviously the statement out of the administration has been very clear. This is about regime change. Obviously, whether that was the intent going in or not. That's what's happened because of the success of that first strike. But there's a real concern that regime change means nation building and endless wars and the sort of thing that we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan. What are your thoughts on that?
- [26:57]
B
Well, as you know, I am on the record of having been in favor of the action Afghanistan and in favor of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But things didn't go the way that I had hoped. And I say that to say I was on the record from the very beginning that we needed to impose order in Iraq. And that's exactly what we didn't do. We created disorder, not order. And certainly my concerns about that were vindicated by a very, very sad set of years of disorder. So people do have a concern about this. I would just say that in this instance, I don't think that there's any sense from this president because he's been president before, because he's taken action like in Venezuela, because of his track record of things he's been saying for the past 40 years, since he was a real estate tycoon in the 80s and 90s before becoming a movie star, et cetera, he has been against nation building and putting large forces on the ground. Now that doesn't mean it's right or wrong. I'm not making a moral judgment on nation building here. What I'm saying is it's very hard to imagine there's not a single person at the top of this administration who has a position that that's a good idea in the church. Christians in the church, of course, should be praying for peace. We should be praying for the well being of the people across that part of the world. Even the worst of the terrorists, worst of the murderers, the worst of the killers. We want to see them come to salvation in Jesus Christ. We want to see a change of dynamics there for peace, for their own people and for their neighbors. But then second, the church includes Christians who have national security vocations. So people at the State Department, people at the CIA, people in the Defense Department, law enforcement. And so when we talk about the church, we don't want to lose sight that we're not just talking about pastors on Sunday morning who have their own responsibilities, but we're talking about all the people who God has called and equipped with these public service vocations as our guardians, as our protectors, as our defenders. We'll be praying that there's a creativity and a protection for them to do the job.
- [29:07]
A
Well. I think that's a great place to end. I was actually my last question was going to be something along those lines like how do, how does this actually practically work out in our lives? And I think that is such an essential distinction. I'm struck that in the New Testament we Don't read Jesus or Paul or any of the other apostles. We don't have the church fathers. We don't have. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is such a fascinating example of people who led not saying, hey, listen, the only way to follow Jesus is for you to get out of this, get out of the military. There's a respect and an honoring of that vocation. And then there also is, I think, for the rest of us, as you said, not just a good idea is to pray. It's a responsibility for us to pray. It is a task. It is a calling that all of us, I think, express. So I appreciate that clarity. I appreciate this conversation. Any last words here of clarity as we try to think about this?
- [30:11]
B
This? Well, Eric, the biggest thing is what you just mentioned about prayer. And where we start with prayer is in something I had said earlier, is if we could just put the politics aside and we think about the men and women and children of the region of Jordan, of Egypt, of Afghanistan, which is the eastern neighbor of Iran, of the men and women and children of Iran. If we, if we pray, you know, Lord, we want to see peace for them. We want to see an environment where people aren't killing one another in that region. Lord, we'd like to see that give leaders on all sides of this a spirit of peace, a spirit of creativity towards a change of situation. I mean, I just don't think we pray that often collectively along these lines or pray for our leaders in perhaps the comprehensive ways. And they need it. If you don't like Donald Trump, well, he needs prayer. If you love Donald Trump, he needs a prayer. Right? The same for any leader. I mean, Biden or Obama or whoever. They, they need the prayers of the faithful and they need godly counsel around them. And so that's, that's something that we can all be praying for.
- [31:18]
A
Eric, I want to say thanks for this conversation. Dr. Eric Patterson, President and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial foundation in Washington, D.C. by the way, it's a wonderful thing to add if you're headed to D.C. to see the museums, to see any of the memorials stopped by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. It's an incredible, incredible history that is unfortunately, far too recent and always, I think, needs to be told and retold. And that is just a wonderful organization that Eric leads. He's also the author of a Basic Guide to the Just War Christian Foundations and Practices, as well as a newer book and remind me of the title of that, which has various, that you edited, that brings a various denominational perspectives on the just war tradition, which is fascinating if you're a theological nerd like some of us.
- [32:12]
B
Yeah, it's called Just Born Christian Tradition. We edit it with J. Darrell Charles, the great evangelical thinker. And it has a Catholic chapter next to a Baptist chapter next to a Reformed chapter, et cetera, including an Anabaptist chapter. And so it's a it's a very useful for some of the nuances and some of the contributions, particularly the last 500 years in Christendom.
- [32:34]
A
Well, I always appreciate how you remind me that we're not starting from scratch with another conflict or with another tough moral situation, but that we've got a lot in our history and certainly in the foundational and essential doctrines of the Christian faith to build on to think well and to think clearly about this. So, Dr. Eric Patterson, thanks for joining us and thank you all all for joining us for a special bonus episode of the Breakpoint podcast.