Introduction
by Rob Fairmichael
The USA’s war on Iran had just started a few days previously. News came out about how some US military commanders were exhorting their troops to battle by, for example, urging non-commissioned officers ”to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan” and specifically referencing “numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ…..” That admonition went on that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth”. (*a) Well, how would a Christian ethicist deal with that one?
This news appeared the day after I had attended a conference at Queen’s University Belfast under the aegis of its Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice (formerly the George Mitchell Institute) on Christian ethics and Peacebuilding in the Age of AI and Autonomous Weapons Systems. It was organised by our old friend Femi Omotoyinbo who we had worked with before. There were quite disparate inputs including ones by ethicists closely linked with US and UK militaries, academic inputs, a couple of feminist contributions, one or two miscellaneous, and a study of a couple of biblical passages inspired by Lanza del Vasto. There was certainly both chalk and cheese. Not all contributions were ‘Christian’ or overtly so though for some ‘natural law’ was presumably a secular synonym for ‘Christian ethics’. Some, such as the keynote address from a former British military chaplain, were very honest.
I am not going to try to summarise such a wide ranging conference with a dozen speakers. I am just going to deal with the two associated with the US military, one a serving officer working on a PhD, the other a former officer now a philosopher and ethicist at the US Naval Academy, who spoke second. His paper on the ethics of “Weaponized AI” started out with a conundrum, the Samurai’s Paradox (well, his version of it). This is as it was presented on a slide:
“By keeping his sword and refusing to pick up his rifle, the samurai risks his culture being conquered by some foreign adversary.
By putting down his sword and picking up his rifle to defend his culture, his very use of this new weapons technology seems to erode the very culture he is trying to defend.
Hence, whether he fights or doesn’t fight, he loses his culture nonetheless.”
This is an honest military ethicist’s formulation of the dilemma about a violent response. It may apply to a samurai, a trained warrior, but it is a false dilemma. There is such a thing as a nonviolent response, nonviolent struggle for justice, which evades the dilemma above. There is a third alternative to fight or flight but this may not be on a military ethicist’s list of possibilities. The resultant arguments and dilemmas (or lack of them) from having only two options fall apart.
That third possibility, a nonviolent response, is not necessarily easy but it certainly exists, with a great variety of possibilities for action. And a violent response is not guaranteed success either. The speaker did go on to deal with various dangers of AI weaponry and emphasise virtue over means and the retention of moral agency and ‘telos’ (the ultimate goal or purpose of human actions) with respect to AWS/autonomous weapons systems. He ended with the quote from Augustine, he of the formulation of the Just War Theory, about peace being the object and war only being undertaken as a necessity.
I would say that just one fundamental problem with the Just War Theory, which had non-Christian origins but in its Christian formulation sought to set strict conditions for ‘Christian’ warmaking, is that it has failed abysmally. Every army in Christian countries, every leader wanting to go to war, felt sure they fitted the criteria – and if not then that the results would retrospectively justify the warfare. As such it has probably done more to (seek to) justify warring rather than prevent it.
And the current US war on Iran probably fits none of the main six criteria; the ‘easiest’ one to fulfil is probably ‘declaration of war by a lawful authority’ but Donald Trump, as commander in chief, sent US forces to war without the authorisation of Congress which in US law is meant to authorise any war. Zero out of six? Pretty damn poor on the just-unjust war theory spectrum. And yet the supposedly ‘Christian’ or culturally Christian (= ‘superior’?) leaders of the USA spew hateful war rhetoric and sanction attacks which have included the wipeout of a children’s school – just a day or two before Melania Trump at the UN spoke about the sacredness of education….. My own paper to the conference, published below, fundamentally questions the Just War Theory.
The first US-military linked speaker spoke of murder always being wrong and of the combatants/non-combatants distinction and the need to avoid killing the latter. In relation to ‘just war’ thinking on this I don’t get this fair target/innocent distinction. Of course you shouldn’t kill civilians. Adamnán in 697 CE got that. But what I don’t get is why combatants are fair game just because they wear a uniform. What about conscripts – do they deserve the chance to be killed because the state forced them to join up? What about poor people and members of ethnic minorities who joined up to get a life (a lot of the Russian army, and others, would fit these two categories). Or indeed what about those who have the noble aim of defending their country from attack (e.g. Ukraine)? And what of those who are seduced by military propaganda of various sorts which states are so adept at producing, are they also cannon fodder? And what of soldiers who oppose a particular war but feel obliged to fight nonetheless? And, after the war, what of the PTSD suffered by many soldiers (a subject dealt with eloquently by the keynote speaker for the conference)?
The doctoral student’s input emphasised the importance of morally sound judgements in the use of weaponry. “Human beings making the decision to deploy lethal autonomous weapon systems must be practically wise – morally and intellectually virtuous” and that “The appropriate level of risk in any particular case is determined by the concrete targetting decision of a practically wise agent.” Maybe that is as it should be for a Christian ethicist operating within a military system but it is simply not going to happen. How could this be operationalised in a bomb-and-missile war like that unleashed on Iran by the USA (and Israel)? Impossible or highly unlikely, in any other war situation either. And while undoubtedly trying to be ethical ethicists themselves, these two speakers are employed by a government involved in an illegal and immoral war with no basis in just war theory.
The English Christian ethicist sitting beside me on the panel of speakers I was on said gently to me after my talk “It’s not as simple as that”. Maybe. Maybe not. I am an activist and not an ethicist, a theologian or a church historian. As I said in response to a question, if I woke up in September 1939 (implying a lack of existence before that) what would I have done – in relation to Nazism. I don’t know. I also indicated I wouldn’t condemn Dietrich Bonhoeffer for getting involved in a bomb plot to attempt to kill Adolf Hitler. As I quoted in relation to Gandhi, violent resistance is better than no resistance but nonviolence is the best response. I also indicated that the choices we make along the road will be judged and determined by the direction in which we travel. If we prepare for war then it is quite possible we will get it.
But I should point out that nonviolent resistance was important even in the Second World War. Gene Sharp documented the – successful – Norwegian teachers’ struggle against the nazification of education in the Quisling regime; “…the Norwegians were not pacifists and did not act out of a sure conviction about the way they had to go. Things happened in the way that they did because no other was was open…..” (*b) Disguised disobedience was also important; supply trains in Nazi occupied Europe ‘accidentally’ were sent in the opposite direction to which they were intended.
Captain Basil Liddell Hart was involved in the interrogation of German generals after the Nazi defeat. He wrote: “Their evidence tended to show that the violent forms of resistance had not been very effective and troublesome to them, except in wide spaces of mountainous area such as Russia and the Balkans, where topography favoured guerrilla action…….Their evidence also showed the effectiveness of non-violent resistance as practised in Denmark, Holland and Norway – and to some extent, in France and Belgium. Even clearer was their inability to cope with it. They were experts in violence….But other forms of resistance baffled them – and all the more in proportion as the methods were subtle and concealed…..” (*c)
A long time ago there was a 16-year old school boy who watched a British Army training film on hand-to-hand combat. This was as part of activities with the British Army cadet force which was an integral part of the school he attended in Northern Ireland. The film showed the moves to make in hand-to-hand combat; one side was the Brits, the other the Russkies, one side did all the winning, the other side all the losing and dying. But there was no blood and no guts. It was surreal. That 16-year old decided it was all crazy, handed back his uniform and started working against the cadet force and the military which later led the school principal to tell him, among other things, to “Shut up or get out”.
Undoubtedly that 16-year old was naive and precocious. He knew virtually nothing about the possibilities of nonviolence. His stand was considered an aberration but the problem was he had learnt his Christian and ethical lessons too well, all that stuff about loving your neighbours and peacemakers being blessed. The emperor of the empire of violence had been seen to have no clothes. A lifetime later that person shares their thoughts on the same area of concern in the paper below –
Footnotes to Introduction
(*a) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric
(*b) Originally in Peace News and a Peace News pamphlet, 1958; reproduced in “Gene Sharp – A life devoted to exploring nonviolent actions”, ed. Craig S Grown, Irene Publishing, 2024 (this is reviewed in Nonviolent News at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/2024/12/02/readings-in-nonviolence-sharp-non-shooting-gene-sharp-book-review/
(*c) Chapter “Lessons from resistance movements – Guerrilla and non-violent” by B. H Liddell Hart, pages 239-240, in “Civilian resistance as a national defence – Non-violent action against aggression”, ed Adam Roberts, Penguin, 1969.
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The current opportunity to overcome the perversion of Christianity –
Violence and nonviolence in Christian thinking
A paper by Rob Fairmichael given at the QUB Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice conference on Christian Ethics and Peacebuilding in the Age of AI and Autonomous Weapons Systems, 3rd March 2026
This may count as the ‘graveyard slot’ in the conference but despite my age and white beard I am personally not quite ready for the graveyard yet…… I am an activist rather than an academic and have been involved in peace and politics with a small ‘p’ since I was 16, both on Northern Ireland and international issues. As such it seems somewhat strange to me to end up talking about the basics of Christianity.
Mohandas Gandhi said that “The only people on earth who do not see Christ and his teachings as nonviolent are Christians.” [*1] You may note I said ‘Mohandas’, his given name, rather than ‘Mahatma’, ‘great soul’, the attribution given to him, since while I regard the likes of Gandhi and M L King highly, we do well not to create nonviolent ‘saints’ because then we become ‘sinners’ who cannot emulate them. And certainly neither of them were perfect or easy to live with which should bolster our own self esteem.
The early Christian church was nonviolent. You could not be a soldier and a Christian for the first couple of hundred years. There is no record of Christian soldiers in the Roman army for 150 years and very few until 300 CE. [*2] So what happened? Basically the church sold out to power and the state around the time of Constantine with Christianity becoming the state religion. There were exceptions of some individuals and groups like the Franciscans and historic peace churches such as the Quakers and Mennonites. The excuse for selling out might be “Oh, we realised the end time wasn’t going to come immediately so we had to adjust” – I feel by ignoring Jesus’ life and teaching. I will turn to some of those teachings of Jesus shortly.
But as the early 20th century Polish-German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg also pointed out, the young Christian church was communist in consumption if not in production, sharing their goods and possessions. [*3] So what happened there? Greed, and lots of rich people making rather big needles for miniature camels to pass through, metaphorically at least, as the original Christian message was watered down, or simply ignored, to fit in with the powers that were and are.
Christianity has nose-dived in western European countries including Ireland, in both jurisdictions. This gives an opportunity to rethink the Christian message and look at some of the original teaching.
But does all this mean we roll over in the face of violence and aggression? Not at all. Nonviolent resistance is tailor made for a Christian approach to the world and dovetails exactly. Jesus throwing the moneylenders out of the temple in Jerusalem [*4] I would consider an excellent example of nonviolent direct action fuelled by righteous anger about people making money out of religion. That would never happen today, ho, ho, ho. Someone once said to me that Jesus shouldn’t have driven out the moneychangers as that gave Christians a bad name – but I consider that approach the mistaken, pietistic, quietistic ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’ school of thinking, also known as the ‘holy huddle’ model of Christianity.
‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ [*5] is a core teaching of Christianity. Unless you want to do semantic somersaults I feel it is impossible to love someone and kill them. And Jesus also defines ‘neighbour’ to include perceived enemies [*6] The old adage, especially associated with the First World War, that “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down their life for their friends”, [*7] spoken by Jesus, doesn’t say anything about killing other people. And also in Jesus’ teaching it is “Blessed” or “How happy” “are the peacemakers” [*8] not “Blessed are those who arm themselves to the teeth for they shall be called God’s army and his children”. And there are a few other sayings of Jesus there about mercy and righteousness or justice.
It is clear Jesus rejected violence as part of the way that he was trying to demonstrate. Telling Peter to put away his sword after he had cut off the ear of a servant of the high priest in the Garden of Gethsemane, and then healing it, is a clear indication of this. [*9]
Walter Wink was a US Mennonite with an intriguing but detailed and well grounded take [*10 ] on three examples or words of advice given by Jesus in relation to injustice [*11]; turning the other cheek, giving your cloak as well as your coat, and going the extra mile. What Wink tries to show is that Jesus is not saying ‘Do not resist’ evil, he is saying ‘Resist – but do not resist violently’. I am going to give a very brief and simplified version here – apologies to those who know this like the back of their hand…..
‘Turning the other cheek’, Wink says is actually challenging the perpetrator who would have used the back of his right hand to strike the right cheek of the socially inferior recipient. ‘Turning the other’ cheek, the left, actually challenges the perpetrator because it unsettles them and they would have to shuffle their feet to strike again.
Giving your undergarment as well as your outer garment would have again challenged the person forcing the act since it would have left the previous garment wearer naked – and in Hebrew culture nakedness was more a sin for the person seeing them than for the naked person themselves – and this would have been the person forcing the other to give up their clothes, and not a good look for them, fully clothed after making another person naked.
As for going a second mile, it was the case that a Roman soldier could force a civilian to carry their load for one mile, and only one mile. Offering to do it for a second mile could have put the soldier in a quandary – normally the occupying force found a very reluctant civilian. What was this civilian up to? Were they trying to get them disciplined for forcing the civilian to carry the burden for further than was prescribed? Thus in Walter Wink’s interpretation all three cases show resistance to what is happening though there is far more detail if you read Wink’s analysis.
There are many many possibilities with nonviolence. To again quote Gandhi, “We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more undreamt of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence.” [*12]
Coming on to the so-called Just War Theory, at least in its Christian formulation, Richard McSorley who was a US Jesuit of, as his surname reveals, Irish extraction, amusingly and challengingly, outlined the possibility of a Just Adultery Theory before concluding “Absurd.” But he then goes on to say “Adultery is a personal act. It does not kill millions of people, or even one person. It does not have government support. It always allows for the possibility of repentance and reconciliation. On balance, the Just Adultery Theory has much more in its favor than the Just-Unjust War Theory.” [*13]
And if you actually adhere to the Just War theory, looking at its precepts, it is very difficult to justify any war. There is a cartoon showing God with a long white beard looking down on two armies going into battle and ‘He’ says quizzically – “Now which lot did I choose?”. The fact is both sides will have decided “God with us”, God is on ‘our’ side, probably assisted in Christian countries by chaplains in case individual Christians have any doubts about the righteousness of the cause.
Does the development of remote and AI weapons make any difference to our moral or Christian response to violence and the use of state violence? It shouldn’t but there is a practical difference. If we go back a century or so, advice to soldiers might have been not to shoot until they saw the whites of their advancing enemies’ eyes. Now soldiers are more likely to need gaming skills and not ever see the whites of their enemies’ eyes or even their enemies at all except on a screen, if that. This obviously makes it easier to kill – Rutger Bregman in his book ‘Humankind’ [*14] speaks of the extent to which armies have to train soldiers to kill and yet many soldiers in battle do not shoot to kill unless they are immediately threatened. And AI makes the risk to civilians, the percentage of civilian deaths, much higher. All of this makes the dangers we face even greater.
I am not a believer in a nonviolent approach simply because I identify as a Christian but because I am human and I see it as practical. [*15] Regarding the conflict in Northern Ireland, on 1st April, April Fool’s Day,1994, the year of the ceasefires here I did get to read a press release I had written [*16] on a community radio station, probable listenership around three people. This story spoke about a secret interdisciplinary research project involving various departments of the universities here in Norn Iron looking into the origins of Catholics and Protestants in this part of the world. This top secret research had reached an important conclusion after their extensive research about their ethnic origins being much closer than thought; both Catholics and Protestants were members of the same species, homo sapiens, according to the research report. I might add here now that how ‘sapiens’ we are is open to debate but we certainly are all human.
Nonviolence is practical and efficient while the time frame involved may be different to using violence. Although this talk comes from a Christian standpoint, it is important to state that nonviolence can stand by itself as a pragmatic approach without any religious or philosophical backing. The research by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan [*17] relates to intrastate conflicts but some of the 323 cases they studied are on the same scale as an international war. There is debate about their work but their analysis showed nonviolent campaigns twice as effective in reaching their goals as violent and with better outcomes regarding human rights. Even if their research is a bit skewed [*18] it would still show nonviolence coming out on top. Gene Sharp’s typology of 198 varieties of nonviolent action shares hundreds of concrete and effective historical examples, quite a few from Ireland. [*19 ]
As Kate Laverty has stated [*20], Martin Luther King “insisted that nonviolence seeks not the defeat of the opponent, but the transformation of the conflict” and obviously this is in accord with Christian thinking. And as US activist and feminist Barbara Deming stated, “A liberation movement that is nonviolent sets the oppressor free as well as the oppressed.” [*21]
One of the exciting developments in Christianity in the last while in thinking about violence and nonviolence has been statements by Popes Francis and Leo but especially the work of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative begun by Pax Christi International which is “dedicated to promoting active nonviolence as a core principle of the Gospel. We believe that nonviolence is central to the teachings of Jesus and vital to the mission of the Catholic Church. [*22]
And as Martin McMullan says, “Despite the widely diverse viewpoints that interpretation of the Scriptures brings up, since the mid-twentieth century there have been numerous seminal works illuminating the nonviolence of Jesus, leaving little scholarly doubt that the message of nonviolence was a central part of Jesus’ teaching and life practice….” [23]
However it is true that for many in the West religion of any kind is no longer a major motivation. Mary Condren has said “Instead of monotheism, we now have the working strategy of unquestioning obedience to military authority, which continues to sustain various forms of patriarchal power….Those soldiers willing to sacrifice their lives confer upon the military-industrial complex a new kind of theological status, that which represents the “whole” now that traditional religion seldom serves this purpose….” [*24] Thus militaristic sacrifice of people becomes a replacement for religion and justification for state action and further killing. But there are many who prefer to go with a ‘just in case’ version of God being on our side as an extra weapon in our armoury.
The decline in Christian belief and church power in our part of the world is an opportunity to rethink where Christians stand on a variety of questions not least violence and sharing in society and the world. If Jesus said and did what he did in Zero Century Palestine, what should that mean for Christians today? Not more of the same, thank you.
We need to break into history and cycles of violence to build a different future. The Second World War was a product of the First World War and that was the product of imperial rivalries stretching back many years previously. I should perhaps also state that in Gandhian thinking there is a hierarchy of responses against injustice; inactivity and passivity at the bottom, next a violent response, and then nonviolence as best.
That different future we need should question the involvement of us all either in or as fellow travellers with the military-industrial complex – as consumers, as tax payers, as voters, as academics here in this university or elsewhere doing research for or of use to the military, or as employees. Business at arms producer Thales in Castlereagh down the road and in Co Down, soon to have a third site, is booming, oh, but it is jobs they say, creating weapons to kill elsewhere, and we are in a society where people were killing each other not so long ago. There are many other ways in which we are complicit in a violent world.
Christians and Christian churches should be in the forefront of radical change at home and abroad and reject the long captivity of their faith by the state and by the powers that be, economic and political. The root of the word ‘radical’ is ‘root’ and if we look at the origins of Christianity without blinkers then we come up with something very different to what we are generally presented with as Christianity today, and aiming for a very different society to the one in which we live.
Is this all naive, what I am saying? One of the definitions of ‘naive’ is ‘simple and guileless’ and I can go with that if ‘simple’ is understood as ‘plain straightforwardness’ rather than stupidity. I believe that unrealistic and dangerous naivety belongs to those who think that building up weaponry makes them safe. The opposite is the case because the opposing side has the same thinking and then BOOM. Europe at the moment feels like the build up to the First World War but we have 21st century weapons. Our leadership and society have an astounding lack of understanding about how conflict develops and overspills, and no thinking at all about how escalating conflict can be defused.
If you want a mix of cynicism and naivety just look south of the border in Ireland. The establishment – political and media – has created the image of a Russian bogeyman about to invade Ireland at any time, using this as a ruse to get the Republic to join the big guns of the West [*25] This is geo-political and military nonsense and very sad considering Irish neutrality and peacemaking efforts in past years. Of course there is a danger to Ireland from Russia but it is in the context of a European war and the Irish response should be concentrating on building a just peace and not an armed standoff. The Irish state has refused to look at options for non-offensive defence and nonviolent civilian defence [*26] or indeed to extend its neutral peacemaking.
AI weapons are simply the latest development in a long line of evil, yes, evil, whether you define evil through a moral or a religious lens. AI weapons are a new issue but nuclear weapons haven’t gone away, you know, and still threaten to either wipe us out or take us back to a far worse situation for the human survivors of nuclear war than the stone age. Reining in militarism is a monumental task but we have two feet or perhaps even a wheelchair to move forward, it is a task for us all, whatever our religious or secular beliefs.
Finally, expenditure on weapons, weapons research and an arms race is totally unChristian, not only in a grossly unequal world of great need, but also in the face of the ecological crisis which threatens us all in various ways including massive suffering and dislocation of peoples across our globe. Global heating is the biggest security issue we face and the military contribute massively to that looming disaster. [*27]
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Footnotes
*1 Downloadable poster with this quote available at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/posters/
*2 “New Testament basis of peacemaking” by Richard McSorley, Herald Press, 1979, chapter 4, “The First Three Centuries”, page 68 and following.
*3 On this topic see e.g. “Property and riches in the Early Church” by Martin Hengel, SCM Press, 1974. The Magnificat, Luke 1.52-53, is another indication of the radical nature of the Christian message.
*4 This features in all four Christian gospels including Matt. 21. 12-13.
*5 Mark 12.31.
*6 Luke chapter 10.
*7 John 15.13.
*8 Matt. 5.9.
*9 Luke 22:49-51, John 18:10-11, Matthew 26:51-52
*10 “Engaging the Powers – Discernment and resistance in a world of domination”, by Walter Wink, Fortress Press, 1992, Chapter 9, p. 175 and following, and coverage elsewhere including IFOR pamphlet “The Third Way – reclaiming Jesus’ nonviolent alternative”, mid-1990s. However ‘Engaging the Powers’ is by far the best in giving greater context.
*11 Matt 5.38-42.
*12 Downloadable poster with this quote available at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/posters/
*13 McSorley, ibid., p.101.
*14 “Humankind” by Rutger Bregman, Bloomsbury, 2020.
*15 There are different publications or pamphlets looking at successful nonviolent actions e.g. “Victories without violence” compiled by A Ruth Fry, Ocean Tree Books, 1986. Gene Sharp’s typology in “The Politics of Nonviolent Action”, Part Two, “The Methods of Nonviolent Action”, Porter Sargent, 1972, gives extensive examples of nonviolent actions of which most but certainly not all were successful; a number of Irish examples are included.
*16 https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/52553781984/in/album-72157678685228508
*17 “Why civil resistance works – the strategic logic of nonviolent conflict” by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, Columbia University Press, 2011. There is also much online. For a review by Rob Fairmichael see https://www.innatenonviolence.org/readings/2020_03.shtml
*18 And if skewed this was not necessarily or always in favour of nonviolence. They judge the IRA violent campaign in the Troubles in Northern Ireland as a ‘partial success’ whereas I would certainly not agree and would go with the essence of Seamus Mallon’s judgement – patronising but I believe substantially correct – that the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 was “Sunningdale for slow learners”. However it should be pointed out the IRA had not bought in to the Sunningdale Agreement and nor did harder line unionists – and the DUP initially rejected the Good Friday Agreement, to which they have never formally signed up. The Sunningdale Agreement led to the brief powersharing government in Northern Ireland in 1974, brought down by a loyalist strike and stoppage.
*19 Gene Sharp, ibid. It could be 1,980 examples or even 19,800.
*21 Downloadable poster with this quote available at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/posters/
Barbara Deming was not a Christian but this quote is highly compatible with the best of both humanism and Christianity.
*22 Pax Christi Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, https://paxchristi.net/cni-about-us/ ; “Choosing Peace – The Catholic Church Returns to Gospel Nonviolence”, ed. Marie Dennis, Orbis Books, 2018; “Advancing Nonviolence and Just Peace in the Church and the World”, Pax Christi International, 322 pages, 2020, ed. Rose Marie Berger, Ken Butigan, Judy Coode and Marie Dennis.
For a compendium of sayings and writings by Pope Francis on nonviolence, compiled by Ken Butigan see https://paxchristi.net/a-compendium-of-pope-francis-use-of-the-term-nonviolence/ and also a related piece by Sylvia Thompson at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/2025/09/01/pope-francis-and-nonviolence-lets-move-towards-a-nonviolent-culture-an-other-way/
*23 “Christianity’s Missing Peace – Pope Francis, Gospel Nonviolence, and the Renewal of the Irish Church” by Martin McMullan, page 4, forward by Mairead Maguire, Wipf & Stock, 2025, 129 pages.
*24 The Serpent and the Goddess – Women, Religion and Power in Celtic Ireland”, by Mary Condren, 2002, New Island Books, page 198.
*25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A87_exf8inQ shares a great song on the topic
*26 https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/53003786126/in/album-72177720309217408
says something about that refusal.
More generally regarding possibilities in this area see e.g. “Making Europe Unconquerable: the Potential of Civilian-based Deterrence and Defence”” by Gene Sharp, Taylor and Francis, 1985; “Pacifism Today: A Dialogue about Alternatives to War in Ukraine” by Majken Jul Sørensen, Irene Publishing, 2024; review of this at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/2024/04/02/the-possibility-of-nonviolent-resistance-in-the-contemporary-world/ ; also see https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/2022/04/01/nonviolent-resistance-to-invasion-occupation-and-coups-detat/ which has more references on this area.
*27 This is increasingly recognised as a catastrophic problem not just by peace related groups https://www.tni.org/en/publication/climate-collateral-2pagebriefing but by scientists and science journals, see e.g. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/warfares-climate-emissions-are-huge-but-uncounted/
– Nonviolent News welcomes reflections on nonviolence from all standpoints whether they be religious of any origin, secular, philosophical or pragmatic.
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