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In this timely and weighty episode, Pastors Zack and Josh explore just war theory—a historic Christian framework for thinking about when (and how) war can be morally justified in a broken, sinful world. Drawing from Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Romans 13, and the Sermon on the Mount, they walk through the classic criteria of justice before war, during war, and after war.As the podcast releases roughly 44–45 days into Operation Epic Fury (the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran that began February 28, 2026), the conversation applies these principles to real headlines: preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, targeting military capabilities while minimizing civilian harm, the challenges of fighting an apocalyptic ideology, and the high cost of conflict (including U.S. casualties and tragic civilian losses).You’ll hear honest discussion on:The spectrum between pacifism (over-realized eschatology) and “might makes right” imperialismKey just war criteria: just cause, legitimate authority, last resort, right intention, probability of success, proportionality, and discrimination between combatants and civiliansHistorical examples like World War II, the atomic bomb, and the messy realities of the War on TerrorWhy a Christian worldview that affirms humans are made in God’s image fundamentally shapes how we evaluate warThe importance of justice after war—restoration, reconciliation, and pursuing lasting peace (as seen in post-WWII Japan and Germany versus other conflicts)How radical Islamist ideology (explored more in the next episode) complicates traditional just war thinkingThe pastors emphasize that Christians are not warmongers—we should be among the hardest to convince to go to war and the most eager to pray for peace and human flourishing. Yet in a fallen world where evil exists and governments bear the sword (Romans 13), sometimes force is a tragic necessity to protect the innocent and restrain wickedness. True peace is the goal of any just war.Whether you’re wrestling with current events, military service, or how to pray amid global conflict, this episode offers biblical clarity without simplistic answers.
In this timely and weighty episode, Pastors Zack and Josh explore just war theory—a historic Christian framework for thinking about when (and how) war can be morally justified in a broken, sinful world. Drawing from Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Romans 13, and the Sermon on the Mount, they walk through the classic criteria of justice before war, during war, and after war.
As the podcast releases roughly 44–45 days into Operation Epic Fury (the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran that began February 28, 2026), the conversation applies these principles to real headlines: preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, targeting military capabilities while minimizing civilian harm, the challenges of fighting an apocalyptic ideology, and the high cost of conflict (including U.S. casualties and tragic civilian losses).
You’ll hear honest discussion on:
The pastors emphasize that Christians are not warmongers—we should be among the hardest to convince to go to war and the most eager to pray for peace and human flourishing. Yet in a fallen world where evil exists and governments bear the sword (Romans 13), sometimes force is a tragic necessity to protect the innocent and restrain wickedness. True peace is the goal of any just war.
Whether you’re wrestling with current events, military service, or how to pray amid global conflict, this episode offers biblical clarity without simplistic answers.
Join Dr. Josh Hutchens, director of Gateway Seminary's Rocky Mountain Campus and pastor at Overland Church in Fort Collins, Colorado, as he explores spiritual faithfulness amid life's challenges and suffering. Through discussions on theological questions and inspiring stories, Wisdom for the Wilderness offers guidance and hope for navigating the complexities of faith in a broken world.
speaker-0: Welcome to wisdom for the wilderness, weekly podcast by the pastors of Overland Church, where we talk about the Bible, theology, practical topics. And today we're going to talk about a really relevant topic right now. And one that I hear people talking about, and that is just war theory. at the release of this podcast are 44 or 45 days into the operation Epic Fury. being transparent, we were filming this at day 40. And so my hope is that by the time you hear this, it's irrelevant. And we're like, okay, â it's over, but this is still as a conversation that Christians really need to think through. â and, and really need to have a good understanding of, especially in the world that we live in. It's a, it's, you know, Jesus said there will be wars, right? And so Christians ourselves.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: need to know how to think about wars. We are not pacifist by default, though some Christians take that approach or that belief, but we're also not warmongers. So we want to jump in and just work through what is just war theory and how it applies to â even the current conflict in Iran. So Josh, give me your summation. What's just war theory?
speaker-1: Yeah, so I think you kind of set it in a spectrum there, warmonger on one side, pacifism on the other side. I think that's helpful in just kind of starting to think through this. So this is something that goes back to the very earliest days of church history this discussion. â You had, if you can imagine, the gospel going out, and some of the...even in the book of Philippians, it says that some of the Praetorian guard, those soldiers that are in Caesar's household, have heard the gospel. And so, automatically, then you have this discussion of, can a soldier be a Christian? or do they have to choose between being a soldier and being a Christian? And so, you have people coming out on different sides of this, and, â you know, through that discussion, ultimately what we call just war theory is kind of formulated by Augustine and then later by Aquinas in the medieval period, kind of fills it out a little bit. But, you know, before they verbalize that, you have to understand that essentially for 4,000, 5,000 years of human history, there was really no discussion of whether or not a war was just. You know, it was might makes right. Empire is the goal. And so, nobody in the Roman Empire, for example, is saying, should we go invade Britain? Absolutely, we should go invade Britain. know, we should invade, you know, everywhere and create a global empire. That's the goal.
speaker-0: And that was not just the Roman Empire's goal. Every empire before them. at the time that the New Testament was written, the Roman Empire, that's who was dominating.
speaker-1: Right in the ears. Yes, yes, absolutely. And, â you know, the Bible has a lot of judgment on that. â It uses the imagery, especially in Daniel and Revelation, of these empires being beasts. â And so, it's like they're less than human. They're subhuman in their craving for blood and for domination. â And so, you have that on one side. On the other side, you have Christians who take that pacifistic view mainly rooted in the Sermon on the Mount, things like turn the other cheek and â that kind of thing. Love your neighbor. Yeah. And so, you know, they would apply that to say Christians should never use any violence of any kind and â never be involved in any violence of any kind, and that a Christian society would be completely
speaker-0: Azure.
speaker-1: pacifistic and not be involved in war. But what Augustine saw was that we still live in a fallen world. And in a fallen world, there's evil, and in a fallen world, there's a role for government. â And essentially, the pacifistic viewpoint is what we would call an over-realized eschatology. That is, they're taking things that rightly belong to the future,
speaker-0: Right.
speaker-1: and they're trying to bring them into the present in a fallen world. So, we know that in the new creation, we're going to, you know, â turn our swords into plowsheers and all these promises that there's not going to be bloodshed, there's not going to be warfare. And they're taking something that is going to happen in the future, and it's over realized in the sense that they're saying, it should be happening right now. And the problem is, we live in a
speaker-0: Right.
speaker-1: world with a bunch of wicked people that want to do wicked things. And so, the government, Romans 13, has been given a sword to punish the evil doer and has been appointed by God, and that's the evil doer within that realm. So, you know, when somebody robs a bank or murders someone, the government has the just authority to deal with that crime, but also to protect citizens from the
speaker-0: That's right.
speaker-1: from the problems without. And so, you know, that's rightly given to the government. The question is, then, when is it right for the government to utilize that power and authority? When is it just to use war powers? And when should we not use war powers? So, we're not going to go back to the might is right way of thinking. We're going to try to figure out how can a government who's influenced by Christian principles make decisions in a fallen world when we must go to war and when we must avoid war? â And so, that's the issue with just war theory is answering that question.
speaker-0: Right. And so you're going all the way back to Augustus, Thomas Aquinas. You're talking early, early Christianity. What? That's the 300s.
speaker-1: Augustine would be 300s, and then Aquinas is in the medieval period much later. â But even before Augustine, you have â Christians who are dealing with this question from the very beginning.
speaker-0: Yep. So, â there's a framework for the just war theory breaks down into three different categories and walk us through those categories.
speaker-1: So, â it's the justice of war, and there's Latin names for this, I'm not going to try because I don't know Latin. The justice in war and justice after war. So, as we're thinking about a war, â we want to, before we go in, we want to think, is this a good cause? Is it just? And then, when we're in the war, we still must maintain justice
speaker-0: Yeah, like justice in conduct. Rules of engagement in the conflict and how you're operating.
speaker-1: And then after the war, there are still responsibilities to be played out with how we are seeking to achieve peace. So, all three of those stages are part of just war theory.
speaker-0: So justice in going to war, there's questions that have to be asked. Is there just cause? Is there a reason that we're doing this? Is it self-defense? Is it protection of life? Think World War II. Hitler had to be stopped. Here he's just killing Jews and like all the things that were going on. We could easily look at Hitler and say he had to be stopped. And the only way he stopped is to go to war. Right. Right. We waited around, there were other things we were attacked. mean, there's a lot going on, but there was, we're not sitting around going, was World War II just? No, it was just. Yes. It was, there was just cause. â yeah.
speaker-1: And of course, you know, in any conflict, there's a difference between the macro and the micro. You could look at World War II, and you could find instances in which even American soldiers acted unjustly, but in the bigger framework of the cause, it was something that had to happen.
speaker-0: Yeah. Not saying every, everything, â you can defend every thing that happened. Every act. Absolutely not. But, but in the, there was just cause to go. â there's a question of legitimate authority. Do you have authority to go to war and, know, meaning, â are you the actual government that is going to war versus it's a militia group that's going to war? Right. Or.
speaker-1: Your buddies.
speaker-0: I mean, I think this would be very true if you look at the Middle East and look at terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda or just name the group from over time. They're not, they don't have legitimate authority. So they did not have just cause to do things. Is it the right intention? Is it the last resort? Or should be the last resort? Have the peace talks come to the end of their negotiation?
speaker-1: Whoa. And right intention, you know, what is the true purpose behind this? You know, you have to be honest with yourself if you're in government making these decisions. Are we going in to protect our own people and protect others, or are we going in, you know, for oil or, you know, something else that really is a wrong purpose behind this? And it's right for us to question those. those purposes.
speaker-0: One of the questions about just cause is, there probability that you can win the war? So think about a small country, you know, a small country, like for Ukraine to have started a war with Russia, which did not happen. That would be the example, right? They were, they were going to lose. So think of a small country in a big country, it would be, it would be unjust to its people to pick a fight that you know, you're going to lose. That's just really going to mean a lot of your people are
speaker-1: Yep.
speaker-0: are killed. Yeah. Right. So, â you, there has to be a â probability of success. â there's a, there's another question of proportionality. â think about larger countries like Russia attacking Ukraine over something over a piece of land and you've got this massive. again, Russia attacking Ukraine, I don't think would be just war.
speaker-1: Yeah. And, â in proportionality is also the, the idea of what are the, the goal posts of this conflict. So, you know, what is going to be determinative of success? And so, you know, we kind of had a, â instance of this, â this past week where, â the president said, we're going to completely destroy a civilization. Right. Speaking about the Iran conflict. that is not a proportional response. â Of course, I think the actual Department of War has specific goals of they want to destroy certain sites where uranium is being enriched and various other gold marks to cripple this radical â extremist government. so, those are things that are proportional, but actually wiping out an entire country is not. And so, that's the other part of this planning â in advance.
speaker-0: And then, â you know, in conduct justice, the what's happening in war, â you know, have to ask, there's all sorts of questions that you would ask of, know, are you attacking civilians? Right. You know, are you just, are you, are the innocent. At what level are innocent people dying? Who is it that you're attacking?
speaker-1: Yeah, that's called discrimination, discriminating between those who are combatants and those who are not. And of course, in war, things get messy, and there are going to be people that get hurt that you don't want to get hurt, but your intention should be to focus combat on actual combatants. â Now, Again, it's messy and especially in the war against terrorism. It became incredibly messy because terrorists don't play by the rules and they hide â among civilians and family members.
speaker-0: They use children. Yes. They, you know... I've got a friend who was in the war on terror and has, you know, he's got PTSD, he's got all the things. And one of the things that just messes them up is, you know, they had strapped â bombs to a kid's bike.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-0: And, and the bike, the kid was going to roll the bike and, and, you know, they had to shoot the bike and it killed the kid. that, you know, that killed, but, but again, the war on terror got incredibly messy because you have one side that's trying to go by rules of engagement. And the other side that is, is not Vietnam would be the other.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yes. Vietnam veterans, â you know, sometimes had to shoot children because children were bringing bombs, â and so it was incredibly messy. But the intention should be that we're not going to cause, â you know, harm to life. And, you know, the big kind of historical question on this would be the use of the atomic bomb in World War II. you know, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that just that we dropped the bomb? And there are arguments to be made in both directions. The fact that it indiscriminately killed â thousands of people in those two Japanese â cities is problematic. â That those cities were strategic cities, â that were producing war materials â was the reason why those cities were chosen, and it wasn't just â Tokyo or some random city. Those were actual locations where things were being produced and those types of things. And then in terms of proportionality, â at that point, the invasion of Japan was being planned. Actually, my grandfather was at Pearl Harbor preparing for the invasion of Japan. and you you think that D-Day was messy, invading, you know, sheer cliffs that are the beaches in Japan where everyone is suicidally committed to defending the emperor, it was going to be the death of millions and millions of American soldiers. So, you know, that's one of those things where we can go back and forth all day long, I think. and never have a satisfying answer, but the fact that we are a civilization that has that debate is fundamentally different from a civilization that is not founded in Christianity.
speaker-0: Absolutely. Right. Without the worldview that that person is made in the image of God. Yeah. And has dignity, value, and worth.
speaker-1: And this is why it is incredibly scary for non-Christian countries to get these same weapons. know, North Korea, Iran, these are not countries that value human life â the way that we do. And so, you can imagine what they would do with those weapons.
speaker-0: Next week, we're going to be talking about Islam and how Islam views things radically. We're going to dive in on that. I mean, when we move into talking about Iran, we have to begin to address, so what is the overriding worldview of Iran? so as we head here, right, and I guess we should talk just maybe a little bit about justice after war. What is the... In goal. do you restore? And you brought up Japan, right? Where we did drop those bombs, but then we put a ton of work in restoration and continue to do things in Japan for Japan's good to this day. And Japan is an incredible ally of the U S. â so like there, there was an intentionality of what happened after that. unlike say Afghanistan. where we essentially just lost that war on terror and Biden, this drives me crazy that this we ever got to hear, but Biden just pulls out. tools of war. and so those same, like, what did we, what did we learn from the war on terror? And, â you know, so when we go in and we do the operation in Venezuela, or we're doing these things and we've got to ask the question, what are we going to do?
speaker-1: Yeah, and so, you know, there's got to be order. You want to establish some sort of longevity to the peace, if possible, after the war. And this is what, you know, Roosevelt and Churchill and even Stalin were trying to do, set up a post-war world. And it actually worked. It worked for about, you know, 60 or 70 years to preserve much greater peace in the world than would have otherwise been through things like the United Nations and that kind of thing. â There is also a need to seek out justice. So, there were war crime trials. The Nazis were put on trial in Nuremberg. They were executed for the crimes that they committed. And â then there's a need for consolation. That is, you don't want to just â you want to reconcile as much as possible with your enemies. And so, you know, the things that we did for the Japanese people, the German people after World War II, were intended to â repair those relationships. â So, you know, that's the goal, is you want to bring about peace, that a just war is a war. that is fought for the sake of establishing and winning the peace. â It's not for simply the purpose of war, it's war with the purpose of peace.
speaker-0: That's right. That's good. It's a really good way to say it. So how should the Christian think about what's going on right now?
speaker-1: Yeah. It's complicated, and it's always going to be complicated. But I think that if we look at Iran, and we're going to talk more about this in the next episode when we talk about Islam, we look at a regime that is incredibly dangerous, that has killed Americans and others across the Middle East, you know, since the 1970s. Right. and they are apocalyptically motivated. They don't act on the basis of reason. â And this is the problem that the Obama administration created with Iran, is they assumed that these are just good, civilized people who, you know, the leaders of Iran are just kind of rational people that are just misunderstood. And if we can just go in and talk nice to them and meet some of their needs, then all the threats they're making are going to go away because really all the problems in the world are caused by toxic white males who have dominated history and colonized everywhere. And if we just kind of make peace with them, will be peace. What they didn't understand was that's not how that culture and Shia Islam understands the world. And they're more than willing to negotiate with you while never actually believing anything they're saying, never having any intention of following through with the promises they make, because to them, you're an infidel, and they can lie to you, they can do anything to you, your life is
speaker-0: They can kill you. That's right. They need to need to do to you. And again, we're going to talk about this. We'll dive in on this â next week. that, you know, going back to that bomb administration, mean, there's so many things about that bomb administration that I just shake my head at. Yeah. And it was like, â he lectured us and he made us seem like, you know,
speaker-1: That's right.
speaker-0: Russia is not, you know, laughing at the idea of Russia being a threat. You know, there's so, so many things about the way the world works and so many people in the world today fundamentally do not understand the realities of the middle East. Yeah. They do not understand the teachings of Islam. Yeah. And so many people who would, you know, just say in the war in Palestine, if they were to go to Palestine would be killed.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Right. They don't, they don't understand the world in which they're, they're defending. â so again, not to, you know, we'll, we'll dive in on that next week. if we're looking at what happened in our, in, in our end, and you know, I sat the boys down, I watched it that Saturday morning when it's happening, you know, and I'm like in a daylight strike and, know, I'm looking at my boys and go, listen, this is a huge moment in history, right here. This is a major thing that is happening today. Sit here and let's. Let's watch. â Here's the reality of just war, even in just war. And I'm not saying that, that I'm not getting to the point of just, but just know that there will be tragedy in every war. Like you want to avoid war at all costs. And so in that moment, I'm going, this is huge because tragedy is unfolding before us. This is one of the realities of living in a broken and fallen world. And so
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: The things that we talked about, just cause and the different pieces, do we have it? And so one, we don't have all the into.
speaker-1: Yeah, we don't know for sure. And you know, the Iraq war taught us a lot of hard lessons, didn't it? It did. Because the intel was wrong.
speaker-0: was wrong. And was it ever there? They just want it to be there. Were they looking for it to just be there? Were they looking for excuse to get revenge because of 9-11?
speaker-1: And I think this administration seems to have learned some of the lessons of the Iraq War. They're not interested in a total, like, go in, totally remake a country concept. They know that that's a failed thing. It failed in Iraq, it failed in Afghanistan. And so, their goal is simply to take out the ability of Iran to cause chaos in the region. â And the question is, can we do it? â and we don't, you and I sitting here don't know if it's a, â if there's a likelihood of success. You know, what, obviously we have military superiority, â but are these things, you know, so far underground that you could bomb all day long and you're never going to stop them from making an atomic bomb without actually sending soldiers in on the ground. Those questions we don't know. We don't get a briefing.
speaker-0: The one thing I would say is cause it was a preemptive strike. so I don't believe you have to let a country develop nuclear weapons. I think if they're developing and you know, that's their intention that there is just cause to go in and stop it. man, there's, there's critics that are going to argue either way. You know, we mentioned legitimate authority, obviously. I think we have legitimate authority. â was it the last resort? I don't, we will have no way of knowing that. Right. In the future and history might tell us that, but in the moment we don't know, probably wasn't the last resort, but in these moments like this, you're anywhere, it could have been Churchill, it could have been Roosevelt, could name an incredible leader, could just go back to Washington. Right. Had we lost? the revolutionary war, Washington would have been considered an idiot. We wanted, and he's considered a hero. And, you know, while most people in our world consider Trump an idiot, and I just consider him crazy, know, history, history will paint some of that, that picture for us. â probability of success.
speaker-1: Yeah. hero.
speaker-0: I don't know, think it's weak.
speaker-1: I mean it depends on what the goals are. â If it's to go in, take out a regime, install a new regime, â I think that's always very very low success rate in the Middle East. â
speaker-0: What is success? Cause the reality is if the person coming behind them believes in the same Islam, the same worldview, they're going to just arrive back at the same conclusions.
speaker-1: And ultimately, I think in a country like Iran, the best that we can do is to cripple the current regime to such a state that the people could rise up and establish â a new regime. The problem is, usually that's a fight between the same type of people just who want power. So, you know, it's an endless cycle.
speaker-0: Yep. So, in, in conduct, you know, at right now in conduct and what we're doing, we're, we're fighting military forces. We're not going after civilians. Obviously there have been civilian casualties. â you have to remember that. what you hear and what you see, like there's a legitimate chance it's misinformation, it's propaganda, you don't know. One of the things that came out early on, I think it's proved to be legitimate. I could be wrong about that, is that school that got hit, you know, 153 kids or something like that got struck. you know, that's not the intention of the war. So those things, so in conduct, â â I think it's just not to say that it's perfect, right? Like there's going to, there's going to be tragedy that happens in it. you know, I, you know, you have to question with a guy like Trump, what has, especially with Venezuela, â you know, a lot of times he's playing his own version of some sort of mental chess game and there's no doubt that what happened in Venezuela beforehand was part of it. You have no idea like. What's like even even in this play, what, what is against Russia and China? Yeah. We just, we just don't have any of that information. We don't know what's really, really going on. But if this really were about oil and economy, yeah. You know, and the, the, the straight there, what is it? Hormuz. Hormuz. Yeah. You know, if it really were just about oil and that's, and that would be unjust. This would be an unjust, unjust war. So, â Here's the bottom line. History will tell us if it's just or if it isn't just. What we know for sure is, and we'll talk about this last week, â radical Islamists cannot have nuclear weapons and the world make it. And humans flourish because it will result in many, many, many more deaths than what are happening there.
speaker-1: Yes. That's right. Yeah.
speaker-0: And if that is how we gauge it being just and that were the pure motivation the reality of it Then we would probably end up of going this was in fact just war Well anything else you want to say
speaker-1: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, my last word of wisdom would be, you know, if the Lord just has put it in your heart and in your path â to join the armed services, then we should be so thankful for you. That's an honorable thing for Christians to do and serve their country. â And so, you know, that's something that I think we ought to honor even more than maybe we have in the last, you know, several decades â and see as something, an incredible â path for service, selfless, sacrificial service to one's country and the cause of our country.
speaker-0: Yep. You know, often we put, and I say we, mean like in American history, whether it was in Vietnam or the war on terror, Americans put their disdain for whatever political figure and then pinned it against. There's not a soldier that's signing up that going, hey, I'm doing this for the president.
speaker-1: The actual soldiers. â
speaker-0: that won't even be here by the time I get out of training. They're doing it for their country. so yeah, definitely there's honor and respect there. I would just say this. â How many times is my piece of wisdom about prayer, but we should be people that pray for peace. And we should want peace. We should never, never be war hungry or want to go to war. We should be people that are some of the hardest people to convince. Like it's a good idea to go to war. But we should be people that care about human flourishing. So pray for the flourishing of humanity all over the face of the earth. And when we do have to go in war, do so. seriously but with a level of prayer and seriousness about it that cares about your... other human beings on the other side of the planet that you want to flirt. Well, this was a heavy one today. Thank you for joining us. We'll tune in next week. Talk about Islam and the differences in Islam. Look forward to hearing you there. We want to thank you for joining us for Wisdom for the Wilderness. As always, if you have any questions, you can email us at wisdom at overlandchurch.org. And until next time, go be a light for the gospel and be blessed.
speaker-1: That's right.