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Killing from the Inside Out: Moral Injury and Just War
Armies know all about killing. It is what they do, and ours does it more effectively than most. We are painfully coming to realize, however, that we are also especially good at killing our own "from the inside out," silently, invisibly. In every major war since Korea, more of our veterans have taken their lives than have lost them in combat. The latest research, rooted in veteran testimony, reveals that the most severe and intractable PTSD--fraught with shame, despair, and suicide--stems from "moral injury."
But how can there be rampant moral injury in what our military, our government, our churches, and most everyone else call just wars? At the root of our incomprehension lies just war theory--developed, expanded, and updated across the centuries to accommodate the evolution of warfare, its weaponry, its scale, and its victims.
Any serious critique of war, as well any true attempt to understand the profound, invisible wounds it inflicts, will be undermined from the outset by the unthinking and all-but-universal acceptance of just war doctrine. Killing from the Inside Out radically questions that theory, examines its legacy, and challenges us to look beyond it, beyond just war.
But how can there be rampant moral injury in what our military, our government, our churches, and most everyone else call just wars? At the root of our incomprehension lies just war theory--developed, expanded, and updated across the centuries to accommodate the evolution of warfare, its weaponry, its scale, and its victims.
Any serious critique of war, as well any true attempt to understand the profound, invisible wounds it inflicts, will be undermined from the outset by the unthinking and all-but-universal acceptance of just war doctrine. Killing from the Inside Out radically questions that theory, examines its legacy, and challenges us to look beyond it, beyond just war.
190 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2014
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149 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 31, 2015
This was not an easy book to read, but not because of the historical and theological material shared; rather, the book evoked memories of actual events and associated feelings from my experiences in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq in 2004. An interrogator in Vietnam, I was a Chaplain in the last two. This important volume on the genesis, practicality, and failure of the Just War Tradition has challenged my sense of self as a theologian and a decent man in that work. The sentence that sums it up reflects the Chaplain as "all about caring and affirming, while meanwhile evading real moral and religious issues." (Page 139) The book is not designed to make former soldiers like me feel badly, but to help me discern the path ahead in standing for something other than complicity in violence and the chaos of warfare. I would suggest all religious types read this book, and especially those who seek to provide pastoral care to our soldiers.
July 7, 2018
This was a strange one for me. Parts of it -- especially tracking the history of just war theory -- were great. But large chunks of it were given to pretty tangential lines of thought, particularly as the talk of thinking on sex in the ancient world became less a comparison point and more the start of a separate book.
I also found his conclusion very odd: Given the failure of just war theory and the moral danger to participants, we should....have universal conscription? I'll save the typing for a full response, but that seems to miss a few key ideas (even some of his own) and it misreads peacemaking as passivism (rather than an active, risky endeavor). It also ignores those who would be conscientious objectors. Maybe if he had developed that idea more, the case would have been stronger, but coming at the end of the strongest sections of the book, it felt like a very odd curve.
I also found his conclusion very odd: Given the failure of just war theory and the moral danger to participants, we should....have universal conscription? I'll save the typing for a full response, but that seems to miss a few key ideas (even some of his own) and it misreads peacemaking as passivism (rather than an active, risky endeavor). It also ignores those who would be conscientious objectors. Maybe if he had developed that idea more, the case would have been stronger, but coming at the end of the strongest sections of the book, it felt like a very odd curve.
December 28, 2016
Christians permanently went from being “comprehensively pacifistic before Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity to downright warlike after his conversion.” This book is the rebuttal to Just War theory which was created by St. Augustine around the time of Constantine whose Christian Armies bearing the sign of the cross were sanctioned for the first time to kill non-Christians in apposition to everything Jesus taught. “Jesus nowhere teaches that it is right for his disciples to offer violence to anyone, however wicked.” He goes to his own violent death without a fight and “He blessed ‘the peacemakers’ (Matt 5:9) not the warriors, and opposed the exercise of violence, even in self-defense or revenge.” To Augustine not all killing was murder but depended on the ‘intent’, thus, his belief that violence could be good or evil. Unfortunately, that starts the slippery slope to today where there are countless cases of evil violence done by American soldiers even though only they were given license to do only “good” violence. Warriors can only kill when it’s not avoidable, yet our SEAL team’s best men riddled Bin Laden with bullets when he stood before them aged, alone, and totally unarmed. Warriors don’t enjoy killing, but many do. Killing innocent people must not be the norm, yet it is. You shouldn’t take advantage of the weak, but they do. A warrior knows how to control his anger, but many of ours can’t. Warriors kill people in an honorable way, yeah, like My Lai or Fallujah’s white phosphorous deaths. Warriors must purge themselves of anger, hate, greed, enjoyment or malice – too bad our warriors historically tend to purge themselves best through violence rather than avoiding it. Every concern St. Augustine had about Just War being abused has been ignored by American forces in the field, so why continue with the charade of Just War theory when we never have fought a Just War to begin with? (Don’t say WWII, because if that war was supposed to be ‘against fascism’, why did the US fight on the fascist side of the Spanish Civil War?) Augustine never served in the military and so it was easy for him to live in the fantasyland where soldiers killed dispassionately like surgeons. “How could anyone dispassionately kill an attacker?” It’s fascinating that today’s Catholic Church and almost every Christian sect still to this day “fails to outspokenly endorse and publically defend selective conscientious objection to war, much lass pacifism.” “With the gospels extracted and neutralized, there was not enough left in the Bible to make the case against war.” Cornel West calls this the battle between the Constantinian Christian (Just War, St. Augustine style Christian selling out Jesus) and the Black Prophetic Tradition (Liberation Theology, advocating for the poor and non-violence MLK style). Erasmus said, “The whole philosophy of Christ argues against war.” Andrew Bacevich says we won’t be able to reverse militarization of US Foreign policy unless we bring back the draft. Vietnam Chaplain William Mahedy said, “War …is a form of hatred for one’s fellow human beings. It produces alienation from others and nihilism, and it ultimately represents a turning away from God.” In conclusion, Just War Theory was never more than a theory. “The idea that there are rules in warfare,” wrote Sebastian Junger, “probably ended for good with the machine gun.”
May 10, 2018
The following words on this interesting book are not so much a review as they are some of the thoughts I immediately walk away with after having read the book.
The ancient comparison of killing with sex was hard to digest. The history of christendom having rejected sex and killing of any kind is something new to me - I'll have to do more research on that. The one thing that seems pretty obvious to me is that "just war theory" , as formulated by Augustine and Aquinas, is a moral slippery slope if there ever was one. I, as a Christian, am not convinced that self-defense is wrong, but am convinced that the initiation of violence is.
The ancient comparison of killing with sex was hard to digest. The history of christendom having rejected sex and killing of any kind is something new to me - I'll have to do more research on that. The one thing that seems pretty obvious to me is that "just war theory" , as formulated by Augustine and Aquinas, is a moral slippery slope if there ever was one. I, as a Christian, am not convinced that self-defense is wrong, but am convinced that the initiation of violence is.
June 12, 2016
In his 2014 book, “Killing From The Inside Out – Moral Injury And Just War”, author Robert Emmet Meagher takes an historical look at Just War theory – its development and practice, and particularly, its fruits. And the fruits have not been good. Meagher’s entire argument can be summed up in these words from the book’s conclusion: “Just war theory is a dead letter . . . It was never more than a theory, and at its worst it was a lie, a deadly lie. It promised at least the possibility of war without sin, war without criminality, war without guilt or shame, war in which men would risk their lives but not their souls . . . Whether or not these promises were first or ever made in good faith is something we can never know, and it doesn’t matter. What we can know is that they have not been kept. We know this from experience, the experience of war, the killing lab in which the theory of just war has been tested for sixteen centuries. It is time to declare its death and to write an autopsy.” (p. 129).
Meagher has spent decades counseling veterans of America’s wars. What he has discovered, as the title of his book indicates, is that in spite of Christian efforts over the centuries to delineate circumstances under which war could be justified, war has been killing not only those who receive the arrows, bullets, bombs, etc., but killing from the inside out those who pull the trigger. Meagher has learned “that a great many combat veterans, having followed all the rules, are haunted more by what they have done than by what they have endured in war.” (p. 2). Their consciences find no peace in the rationalizations for killing found in just war theory. Their souls are often poisoned, if not ruined as an average of 18 veterans commit suicide every day. “Indeed, many veterans, consumed with irrational and seemingly incurable shame, act plague-ridden, their souls sick unto death, convinced that their dark malaise is contagious and that they themselves, no longer worthy of care, are a danger to everyone they love and to everyone who loves them.” (p. 45). Of course in America “the idea that dutiful service to one’s country in a just war can be simply ‘wrong,’ putting at risk one’s humanity and very soul, is blasphemous and unthinkable to nearly everyone except those who have experienced it to be the case.”
From the perspective, then, of the veterans who return ruined from war, Meagher proceeds to dismantle the reasonings of just war apologists such as Augustine and Aquinas. He then points out why the rationalizations of just wars always fail: “How many states or sovereign authorities, we might ask, have ever declared wars that they have not attempted to justify? Enemies in war always see the other side as somehow in the wrong and themselves as in the right . . . we may well share some simmering doubt regarding just how much difference the theories of just war laid out by two brilliant and renowned monks— Aquinas and Augustine— have ever made or could ever make in limiting war as we or any of our warlike predecessors have known and practiced it.” (p. 98-99).
For Christians these considerations beg a very important question: if Meagher’s conclusions are correct and war can never be just, can a Christian ever then be involved in any aspect of war without sin? Most Christians would dismiss such a question out of hand. That’s why a well-researched and well-argued book like “Killing From The Inside Out” is important to read and consider. I hope that every Christian will prayerfully do so.
Meagher has spent decades counseling veterans of America’s wars. What he has discovered, as the title of his book indicates, is that in spite of Christian efforts over the centuries to delineate circumstances under which war could be justified, war has been killing not only those who receive the arrows, bullets, bombs, etc., but killing from the inside out those who pull the trigger. Meagher has learned “that a great many combat veterans, having followed all the rules, are haunted more by what they have done than by what they have endured in war.” (p. 2). Their consciences find no peace in the rationalizations for killing found in just war theory. Their souls are often poisoned, if not ruined as an average of 18 veterans commit suicide every day. “Indeed, many veterans, consumed with irrational and seemingly incurable shame, act plague-ridden, their souls sick unto death, convinced that their dark malaise is contagious and that they themselves, no longer worthy of care, are a danger to everyone they love and to everyone who loves them.” (p. 45). Of course in America “the idea that dutiful service to one’s country in a just war can be simply ‘wrong,’ putting at risk one’s humanity and very soul, is blasphemous and unthinkable to nearly everyone except those who have experienced it to be the case.”
From the perspective, then, of the veterans who return ruined from war, Meagher proceeds to dismantle the reasonings of just war apologists such as Augustine and Aquinas. He then points out why the rationalizations of just wars always fail: “How many states or sovereign authorities, we might ask, have ever declared wars that they have not attempted to justify? Enemies in war always see the other side as somehow in the wrong and themselves as in the right . . . we may well share some simmering doubt regarding just how much difference the theories of just war laid out by two brilliant and renowned monks— Aquinas and Augustine— have ever made or could ever make in limiting war as we or any of our warlike predecessors have known and practiced it.” (p. 98-99).
For Christians these considerations beg a very important question: if Meagher’s conclusions are correct and war can never be just, can a Christian ever then be involved in any aspect of war without sin? Most Christians would dismiss such a question out of hand. That’s why a well-researched and well-argued book like “Killing From The Inside Out” is important to read and consider. I hope that every Christian will prayerfully do so.
May 23, 2018
This book really affected me: the discussion of early Christianity, the transformation of the Roman Empire into the Holy Roman Empire, the work of Augustine and Aquinas to develop the Just War Theory. Read the other comments; they are more incisive that anything I can come up with right now. And, of course, read the book. Then, like me, maybe you'll start thinking even harder about what it means when you are a citizen of a country which has been at war somewhere for over a half-century, and yet the vast majority of us don't have to think about it. We don't get drafted, we don't have to serve, and many of us don't even have to witness first hand what war does to the bodies and psyches of the people we send to fight.
December 19, 2020
John Owen wrote that we must not see Jesus as calming the Father down. It was God who sent his Son to broker peace -- the love we see in Jesus is the Father's love. God's love gave us paradise. God's love gave us the plan of salvation, calling Abraham, forming Israel, and sending His Son. The Spirit was sent by the Father and Son out of love as well -- so that we would know the love of God from eternity past to eternity future by faith, hope, and love. He wants us to know that He loves us; He does not want us to think He has always been angry, and even Jesus cannot keep that rage back --as if Jesus also wants us to pour wrath out on others.
When the body of Christ kills in the name of Jesus, it is not the Jesus of the Gospels. Nor is it the Jesus of the apostles. Nor is it the Jesus of the Church fathers. This book clearly spells that out.
There is an incredible mercy in God which Jesus was supposed to communicate, not obfuscate.
This book reminded me of this upon reflection. It's a very good read. I had to ask, how could anyone see Jesus in the Gospels and imagine He would want them to "Conquer in His name" or put the first to letters of his title on their shields, "X" and "R"? It sounds like propaganda which caught the Christians off guard and ended up undermining their following of Christ whose kingdom was "not of this world" to doing all they could to be part of a worldly kingdom, even slaughtering others for it.
If for any reason you think Christians are fearful, angry, and hateful people, please remember Ghandi's words, "I love your Christ, but I do not like your Christians." If Christians followed Christ, you would love them too. I believe this book points to moments in history where Christians were in fact lovely, which is hope for me that Christians can re-embrace the Christ of history and actually link the body of Christ to her Head, and become what they were meant to be: compassionate. Merciful. Full of love and grace.
For anyone who feels like something is wrong with them after doing the 'right' thing, this book is helpful in pointing to the Greeks who saw this without the light of Scripture. Reason is sufficient. But if you want more, there are the prophets, who far from encouraging us to suppress the pollution of sin want us to deal with it and be made right with God. It is a process of recognizing that something is wrong with the world, with us as well, and that even with the best intentions we can make perilous mistakes -- and God is both strong enough and willing to take us in His arms and take us back. He sent His Son to wash us, feed us, clothe us, and crown us, after all.
-- Ezekiel 16
With all that said, this book did not make me a pacifist, but I do wrestle with the idea that killing is sin and mass killing is therefore incredibly sinful. As a necessary evil it will require humility from start to finish, with a compassionate drive to minimize the suffering of our beloved enemies -- our fellow humans -- which is only the beginning of optimizing the safety and security of the civilian population. After all, even if they do not receive a single physical injury, they will at the least mourn the loss of their loved ones and need care for that.
Argument:
I. The New Testament does not teach just war theory.
II. The Church fathers did not teach just war theory.
III. Constantine changed everything: Lactantius, Ambrose, Aquinas
a. Lactantias had a different view before tutoring Constantine's son
b. Augustine saw the state as imposing order on a sinful world-- an order itself potentially sinful
City of Man should be held suspect
c. Aquinas placed more trust in the state, looking to Aristotle who saw man as a political animal by nature.
-> none of them were pro-war, but wanted to limit it
IV. Medieval Christians were still against war up to the crusades
V. Theology gave way to law, where legality was key
VI. WWI saw a resurgence of just law theory
What was designed to limit war ended up being an excuse to go war, but even if only wars were just does not account for the nature of war and the inevitable pollution.
When the body of Christ kills in the name of Jesus, it is not the Jesus of the Gospels. Nor is it the Jesus of the apostles. Nor is it the Jesus of the Church fathers. This book clearly spells that out.
There is an incredible mercy in God which Jesus was supposed to communicate, not obfuscate.
This book reminded me of this upon reflection. It's a very good read. I had to ask, how could anyone see Jesus in the Gospels and imagine He would want them to "Conquer in His name" or put the first to letters of his title on their shields, "X" and "R"? It sounds like propaganda which caught the Christians off guard and ended up undermining their following of Christ whose kingdom was "not of this world" to doing all they could to be part of a worldly kingdom, even slaughtering others for it.
If for any reason you think Christians are fearful, angry, and hateful people, please remember Ghandi's words, "I love your Christ, but I do not like your Christians." If Christians followed Christ, you would love them too. I believe this book points to moments in history where Christians were in fact lovely, which is hope for me that Christians can re-embrace the Christ of history and actually link the body of Christ to her Head, and become what they were meant to be: compassionate. Merciful. Full of love and grace.
For anyone who feels like something is wrong with them after doing the 'right' thing, this book is helpful in pointing to the Greeks who saw this without the light of Scripture. Reason is sufficient. But if you want more, there are the prophets, who far from encouraging us to suppress the pollution of sin want us to deal with it and be made right with God. It is a process of recognizing that something is wrong with the world, with us as well, and that even with the best intentions we can make perilous mistakes -- and God is both strong enough and willing to take us in His arms and take us back. He sent His Son to wash us, feed us, clothe us, and crown us, after all.
-- Ezekiel 16
With all that said, this book did not make me a pacifist, but I do wrestle with the idea that killing is sin and mass killing is therefore incredibly sinful. As a necessary evil it will require humility from start to finish, with a compassionate drive to minimize the suffering of our beloved enemies -- our fellow humans -- which is only the beginning of optimizing the safety and security of the civilian population. After all, even if they do not receive a single physical injury, they will at the least mourn the loss of their loved ones and need care for that.
Argument:
I. The New Testament does not teach just war theory.
II. The Church fathers did not teach just war theory.
III. Constantine changed everything: Lactantius, Ambrose, Aquinas
a. Lactantias had a different view before tutoring Constantine's son
b. Augustine saw the state as imposing order on a sinful world-- an order itself potentially sinful
City of Man should be held suspect
c. Aquinas placed more trust in the state, looking to Aristotle who saw man as a political animal by nature.
-> none of them were pro-war, but wanted to limit it
IV. Medieval Christians were still against war up to the crusades
V. Theology gave way to law, where legality was key
VI. WWI saw a resurgence of just law theory
What was designed to limit war ended up being an excuse to go war, but even if only wars were just does not account for the nature of war and the inevitable pollution.
June 6, 2023
This was a challenging read. He states he is taking aim at just war theory from the beginning and there are some tough challenges. The beginning is a bit abstract, tying killing and sex together in the story of Oedipus. I was disappointed that so much time was spent here when the connection didn't amount to anything.
The hay is really made by looking at the development of JWT over time, the exceptions made, and how it never accomplished many if any goals it may have been designed for. However, the acknowledgement that most international law on war rests on JWT is only mentioned and not factored into the calculation of success.
My primary take away is the harm done by Chaplains and other leaders that only pacified and dismissed moral/ethical/theological concerns for actions taken in war that were within the rules of engagement but clearly left the member morally injured. Telling them 'the war is just and any actions taken to win are justified' only serves to alienate them further. We need to rethink our approach to moral injury.
The hay is really made by looking at the development of JWT over time, the exceptions made, and how it never accomplished many if any goals it may have been designed for. However, the acknowledgement that most international law on war rests on JWT is only mentioned and not factored into the calculation of success.
My primary take away is the harm done by Chaplains and other leaders that only pacified and dismissed moral/ethical/theological concerns for actions taken in war that were within the rules of engagement but clearly left the member morally injured. Telling them 'the war is just and any actions taken to win are justified' only serves to alienate them further. We need to rethink our approach to moral injury.
August 12, 2020
This was a thought provoking look at the historical discussion on just war. I appreciated the theological and political perspectives. The author also provided a helpful perspective on moral injuries as a result of war.
February 20, 2025
This book is basically an in-depth dissertation on the history of the intersectionality of Christianity and war. It does a deep dive into the concept of Just War Theory but really doesn't add much to the conversation about moral injury. Honestly, the title is very misleading. I initially read it thinking it may be a good reference book for my clinical work with veterans and first responders. However, I found very little content that could be applied to that purpose. Interesting read, but otherwise no tangible takeaways.
June 21, 2016
An interesting take on Just War Theory in the 21st Century. I agree with many of the conclusions, although I found the tie between sex and killing in war odd. I guess I get the point (have to read the book to understand), but I think it could've been a lot sharper without that tie (which - interestingly - is totally omitted from the conclusion chapter. Overall, I recommend the book to those who serve and those who send those who serve.
March 8, 2016
So many quotable passages!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews