Ronald J. Glossop's review of "Prophetic Nonviolence" by Paul Rasor 

 In his article "Prophetic Nonviolence" Paul Rasor mentions the notion of peacemaking (preventing violent conflict) as a third anti-war theory that "complements rather than replaces" the just war and pacifist traditions.  But I think he dismisses the peacemaking alternative too quickly.
  In one sense it is true that peacemaking is not directed to the same question, namely, what individuals should do with regard to participating or not participating in an ongoing war.   But in another sense, on the issue of where we should focus our intellectual efforts and our financial resources when dealing with the problem of war, that is not the case.  Once modern war gets going there are so many impossible ethical dilemmas for individuals that the only sensible response is to put more thought and effort into preventing it.
  Unfortunately, even much of the thought about preventing war goes in the wrong direction.  Pacifist anti-war literature tends to view war as an ethical problem to be confronted by individuals rather than as a problem in social and political philosophy which needs to be focused on reconciling conflicts between group and group.  War is violent conflict between one group and another group, not one individual and another.
  Rasor argues for an integrated model which he calls "prophetic nonviolence."  But that view is still focused on the ethical issue of what individuals should do rather than on the social issue of how society should be organized.  It is concerned about "the limits of loyalty to the state" and the individual's "higher loyalty to God," not about why we have wars in the first place.
  In the section "Bases for critique" Rasor eventually gets to the social side of the issue when he says, "Justice is manifested in the right ordering of human relationships; war represents the break-down of rightly ordered relationships.  We have a religious obligation to create just communities and social structures . . . "  Good!  But what are the social structures we need to create?
  When discussing the UU principles which are applicable to this problem of war, Rasor fails to mention "the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all."  He fails to discuss one of the main causes of war, an anarchic international system based on the unlimited national sovereignty of each nation-state so that the only ultimate arbiter of conflict is the use of armed force.  It is a system that foments war and ever-more destructive weaponry and the unquestioning loyalty of individuals to their own national government whatever its policies.
  One alternative global system promoted by some is a world empire, the United States of America (less than 5% of the world's population) controlling the whole world by our superior military power.  (The U.S. government now spends as much on its military forces as is spent by all of the rest of the world combined.)   A better alternative to abolishing war is a global institution modeled on the democratic U.S. federation, that is, a democratic world federation where the national governments, like our state governments, are subordinate to a global federal government controlled by a world parliament.  All of the citizens of the world would be represented and conflicts between one group and another would be resolved not by war and violence but by political and judicial means as is done within many democratic national governments.
  Thinking about how to build such a global democratic system is a much better use of our intellectual efforts addressed to the war issue than defending either just-war theory or individual pacifism, even of the prophetic variety which Rasor advocates.  Working to elimate war by making a democratic global government a reality is an appropriate task for all individuals concerned about the problem of war.      

 Ronald J. Glossop, 8894 Berkay Avenue, Jennings, Missouri 63136-5004,
 Phone:  314/869-2303.  Member of the First Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois.
 Author of CONFRONTING WAR (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 4th ed., 2001) and WORLD FEDERATION? (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 1993).  Member of the national board of Citizens for Global Solutions and Chair