Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

For early Saturday morning, the world learned of Operation Epic Fury against Iran at the hands of the United States and Israel.

According to the official White House description, it is, and I quote, a precise, overwhelming military campaign

to eliminate the imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime, destroy its ballistic

missile arsenal, degrade its proxy terror networks, and cripple its naval forces, end quote.

It's always essential for Christians to think like Christians about anything,

including these kinds of historic events. And we do so through the lens of essential and

foundational Christian doctrine, truths about life and morality and human value. Thankfully,

there's a long history, both in the church and the Western world, that wrestles with the

morality of military action.

I asked Dr. Eric Patterson, president and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation,

and an expert on what's known as the Just War tradition about the historic events of the last few days.

Here's Dr. Eric Patterson.

John, thank you for having me and this opportunity to talk a little bit about just war theory,

or what be better to be called, just statecraft.

As you said, we're just in a dynamic situation.

It's only been about 48 hours since the United States had a military operation alongside

Israel striking these targets in Iran, killing the supreme leader and number of other

military officials striking military targets across the country. And of course, Iran has retaliated

with strikes in at least five neighboring countries, which is nothing new for them. And so let me say

something about the Christian tradition about thinking about issues of war and peace,

...