What can a breakpoint daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of

unchanging truth with the Colston Center on John Stone Street?

Almost eight months after the war began in Gaza there are no signs of it lighting up.

While we were all horrified by the attacks on October the 7th, many in the media and the

Academy have been quick to shift the blame from Hamas to Israel for what they now say is genocidal overreaction.

Last fall Dr. Eric Patterson now president and CEO of the Victims of

Communism Memorial Foundation discuss with me on our podcast how the just war tradition can help

us think through the atrocities of Amas and the response by Israel.

During our conversation, Dr Patterson argued that governments have a God-given obligation to defend the innocent.

Here's how he put it.

There's a whole superstructure in the Bible on certain principles.

One is governance.

God created the family as a unit of

governance. He created the church as a unit of governance within its sphere and we

know in the old and the New Testament such as in Romans 13 there's a

principle of government authority to protect and defend.

The Bible has a lot to say about vocations, including those called to security and foreign policy

vocations.

Nehemiah, Joseph in the New Testament, centurians and others.

And so there's never a teaching in the Bible that Christians, that believers are supposed to step outside of those public service vocations to protect to defend.

Still, some Christians who take seriously Jesus' command to love their enemies have a hard time

seeing how that should play out when it comes to nations at war.

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