Edward LeRoy Long Jr. is Pearsall Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics and Theology at Drew University and the author of four books on ethics. In this thought-provoking and timely paperback, he takes a hard look at the thorny problem which is dominating the news and the consciousness of many citizens around the world: terrorism. It stems from a variety of political, economic, contextual, and religious causes. Long presents three models for countering terrorism: (1) The Crusade Model which meets force with force, (2) The Law Enforcement Model, and (3) Peacemaking: A Transformative Model.
Long concludes that "terrorism will not necessarily be stopped by defeating it on some field of battle and obtaining an explicit surrender. It will be eliminated only by creating conditions and expectations in the world that overcome the impulses that give rise to such behavior. Moreover, facing terrorism involves not merely looking at the moral standing of efforts to defeat it but the development of attitudes that will help to mitigate its causes and to sustain a spiritually engendered poise in face of its threats." The author also covers the danger that the state will erode political and civil liberties under the guise of security concerns in the battle against terrorists. Long's Christian response to terrorism involves living with risk, accepting diversity, tolerating differences about participation in war, making a place for forgiveness and reconciliation, and seeing power as servanthood rather than dominion. The author is to be commended for this level-headed and salutary examination of this twenty-first century dilemma. He makes Christian ethics into a healing force for good.
