I see on page 21 of Biggar's In Defence of War that it is 'mistaken to assume that Christian love is properly disinterested . . . .' Well, that's a problem right there. I can only assume that he will elaborate on this, but it's a theologically false claim whatever one's position on Christian participation in rough politics and war.
I also wonder if it's proper to take Hauerwas as the test case for 'Christian pacifism'. He is right to note that Hauerwas is rather well known. Indeed, Hauerwas is both notorious and popular. What's more, Hauerwas is unusually provocative for an academic theologian, and always forthright. I do much wonder, though, if he is truly representative of 'Christian pacifism'. It is in fact unclear that such a term of art can be applied univocally across all the theological, political, and ecclesial movements that assert Christians must refrain from all coercive physical violence. Again, to reduce this complexity by means of a brief engagement with Hauerwas will hardly advance Biggar's case.
This opening gambit in the book troubles me, for if he sets up a straw man by a single-minded focus on one particular, and admittedly peculiar, theologian, which in turn allows him to set up his own convenient 'definition' of what I will say is so-called 'Christian pacifism', then his whole book will be one long exercise in begging the question. Biggar is, of course, entitled to throw a polemic into the fray. But a good polemic will do more than take apart a conveniently constructed simulacrum of the opponents' position or positions. I fear that Biggar will merely stop with this easiest of straw men while setting up the counterargument to his own. (Here he would, in fact, be in good company with Hauerwas, who is, yes, often provocative at the expense of careful argument and exegesis.) If I'm right about this, my friends, then Biggar will have failed on a fundamental level to have argued his case, making his book a waste of paper and time and money.
We shall see.
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