Toward an Embodied Theology of Just Peace

Abstract

A friend asked me, as I was writing this book, if I really thought the War on Women and war itself could be “ended.” I replied in the negative, though it hurt to say so. There are so many deeply embedded forces in Western religion and culture that ensure that the War on Women, and war itself, will rage on. This does not mean these forces cannot be identified and impacted at the root. They can, but it is naïve in the extreme to think they can be eliminated. The practical goals are the prevention and reduction of violence. But this acknowledgement itself is rightly a cause of pain and grief and should always be judged against the ethical urgency that “this should not be.”